Global city or Chinese city? Hong Kong fears the balance is tipping

It was a sight Hong Kongers aren’t used to: legislators clambering over each other and the press corps, grabbing at the microphone as security struggled to restrain them. At the center of the commotion, a desperate voice asked for someone to second a nomination.

The city’s legislature descended into scuffles May 11 over a government attempt to amend its extradition laws. The former British colony of 7.4 million people, which reverted to Chinese control in 1997, does not have extradition arrangements with mainland China, Macau, or Taiwan, among others. But that may not matter if the local government succeeds with its proposal allowing Hong Kong’s chief executive – elected by a predominantly pro-Beijing committee of 1,200 people – to order offenders’ extradition to territories with which the