A 100-Year Territorial Settlement for Ukraine? |
Russia retains occupied territory for a century, then returns it to Ukraine
I once met Chris Patten, the last British governor of Hong Kong, at my workplace in London’s Covent Garden. After a brief and warm exchange, I asked if I might see him again. Patten smiled, wrote his home phone number on a scrap of paper, and handed it to me. I never followed up, and I have regretted it.
Patten presided over one of the strangest but most stabilizing geopolitical transitions of the modern era: the return of Hong Kong to China after a 99-year arrangement signed in 1898. That unusual precedent has resurfaced in my mind as Europe faces its most dangerous conflict since WWII.
In the wake of President Trump’s recent high-stakes meetings with Xi Jinping in Beijing to navigate global stability, Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine has become catastrophic for both sides. Ukraine continues to suffer immense human loss and devastation, while Russia itself is absorbing staggering casualties that some estimates place near a million killed and wounded. The war exposes a darker truth: Europe, a continent that gave Aristotle, Leonardo, Kant, Taras Shevchenko........