World News for Students of English

19-06-2019 07:00

Hong Kong’s central government plans to let China request that people in Hong Kong accused of certain crimes be sent to mainland China for trial.

This comes in the context of a murder case in Taiwan – the criminal ended up in Hong Kong’s court system. Hong Kong’s head of government wants to put a stop to this, so that criminals cannot take refuge in the city.

However, pro-democracy activists fear that the new extradition law is another example of China trying to control Hong Kong. People filled the streets to show that they are against the law.

Although Hong Kong is a Chinese city, it is different from the rest of China because it was a British colony. In 1997, Britain handed the territory back under a special agreement with China known as ‘one country, two system’. Hong Kong’s autonomy is supposed to last until 2047, but China has signalled that it might not be willing to wait that long.

Difficult words: accused (a person officially in trouble because they maybe did something illegal), take refuge (go somewhere safe), extradition (handing over an accused person to a foreign country).

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