Hong Kong Court Clarifies Ruling

Hong Kong’s top court took the exceptional step of stating that it has accepted the right of China’s parliament to interpret the territory’s constitution. China had called on the court to change an earlier ruling on residency that said all children of Hong Kong permanent residents had the right to live in Hong Kong, opening the door to hundreds of thousands of children from mainland China. The court’s clarification was not a recision of the ruling, which sparked the first legal showdown with Beijing since Britain returned the territory to China in July 1997.