British MPs have 'every right' to visit Hong Kong

The head of a British parliamentary committee refused entry to Hong Kong today said that MPs had "every right" to visit, as a government spokesman said China's reaction was "counter-productive".
Richard Ottaway, chairman of the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee, spoke after China refused to grant visas to members of the committee to visit Hong Kong, where violence re-erupted overnight with clashes between pro-democracy protesters and police.
The British parliament will now hold an emergency debate on the incident on Tuesday, further marring efforts to reset relations between Britain and China which were soured when Prime Minister David Cameron met the Dalai Lama at Downing Street in 2012.

Ottaway, a senior member of Cameron's Conservative party, was told on Friday by China's deputy ambassador that eight lawmakers from his committee would not receive visas for a planned trip in a couple of weeks.
He said the deputy ambassador told him: "You're not still a colonial power."
Ottaway told AFP: "I don't think for a moment that we think that we're still a colonial power... We've got every right to ascertain whether China is complying with its undertakings."

Under the Joint Declaration signed in 1984 which set out the terms of Britain's 1997 handover of Hong Kong, the city is governed under the principle of "one country, two systems".

This means that Hong Kong has a string of political, social and economic freedoms not enjoyed on the Chinese mainland.
Ottaway believes that China was "concerned that we might be seen to be supporting the protesters" in Hong Kong but denied having any contact with them.
"They don't like criticism in China and I think if you're going to show a commitment to democracy, which they have done in Hong Kong, you've got to accept that democracy entails constructive criticism and they should actually learn to take it," he said.