Hong Kong -
The British Should Have
Been Tougher, Earlier
By JONATHAN POWER
LONDON-- The last British emissary to Hong Kong who
seriously misread the situation got recalled to London by
fast clipper and reposted as consul-general to
Texas.
Charles Elliot became unstuck because, as Queen
Victoria put it, "all he wanted might have been obtained if
it had not bneen for the unaccountably strange conduct of
Charles Elliot--he tried to obtain the lowest terms from the
Chinese."
Chris Patten, Hong Kong's current government, is also
about to be recalled to London. On June 30th after the union
jack is hauled down at midnight and the yellow star hauled
up he too will sail away, along with Prince Charles on the
royal yacht, Britannia.
Did Mr. Patten, too, seriously misread the bnargaining
relationship with China, not by settling for the lowest
terms, but by demanding too much? Perhaps, say his legion of
critics, he totally underestimated the Chinese, endlessly
provoking them by pushing through his democracy reforms to
the point where it became counterproductive. Now that power
is within their grasp they are determined, they say, to roll
democracy back, dismantle the existing legislature and turn
back the clock further than it would have been if Patten had
left things as he found them five years ago when he took
over.
Patten has behaved, say the Chinese, more in the mould of
Sir Henry Pottinger, Elliot's successor, who on appointment
immediately sailed up the Yangtse river and attacked
Nanjing. Victorious, he ended hostilities with a treaty
which ceded Hong Kong to the British "in perpetuity."
In retrospect it seems reprehensible that Margaret
Thatcher when prime minister did not bequeath Patten a
stronger hand. Although her first instincts were more in the
style of Queen Victoria, in the end she compromised more
than she should. In 1982 during a visit to Beijing she told
the Chinese bluntly, "We stick by our treaties." In other
words, while China had the right to reclaim Hong Kong's New
Territories in 1997 (geographically part of the mainland and
leased by Britain in 1898 for only 99 years) China had no
claim on Kowloon and Hong Kong island, the pulse and heart
of the territory of Hong Kong.
She was argued out of it by her Foreign Office which
believed two things: one, that China could not be
thwarted--it could turn off the water supply from the
mainland for starters and, two, that China was changing
rapidly for the better under the liberalizing hand of Deng
Xiaoping and thus it would be shortsighted to make a
fuss.
Yet, we now know from recent reports that Deng Xiaoping
never expected the British to cvapitulate so easily and was
prepared to live with a longer and less well-defined
transition. If only Mrs. Thatcher had continued to be tough,
insisted on some years of delay, there would have been more
time for Patten's reforms to take root. As it is only two
years have passed since the first fully credible elections
were held, not long enough for Beijing to accept them as
part of the furniture.
This raises a big question which still deserves to be
put: why did Britain take so long to get round to
introducing democratic practices when it had fully-fledged
legislatures in the African, Caribbean and Indian parts of
its empire, thirty, forty and even sixty years ago?
Britain seriously undervalued Hong Kong when it acquired
this "barren island." What bitter irony that it has
undervalued it again as one of the major chapters in world
history comes to a close--the rule of Europeans over the
peoples of Asia, the Americas and Africa. What an epitaph to
Empire!
Still, the chances are that Patten's reforms will survive
despite the continuous tirade of negative expletives
emanating from Beijing.
Beijing did formally agree with the British to "one
country, two systems." Under the Basic Law, approved by the
National People's Congress in 1990, only the conduct of Hong
Kong's foreign affairs and defense are to be directed by
Beijing. Moreover, China has committed itself to elections
in a year's time and the "ultimate" aim of the election of
all members by "universal suffrage."
No doubt, to save its face, Beijing, as it has vowed to
do, will disband the present legislature in the early hours
of July 1st. But the leadership in Beijing knows that the
price of not winning the trust and confidence of the people
of Hong Kong is to kill the goose that lays the golden
eggs--75% of the direct foreign investment in China comes
through or from Hong Kong. Expect the promise of elections
in a year's time to be honoured and, if not fully
democratic, to be not that far short of it. After all the
number one Chinese foreign policy goal is reunification with
Taiwan, now very much a democracy. Any chance of that
happening will be thrown to the wind if the incorporation of
Hong Kong misfires. China is not about to shoot itself in
that foot.
June 26, 1997,
LONDON
Copyright © 1997 By JONATHAN POWER
Note: I can be reached by phone +44 385 351172
and e-mail: JonatPower@aol.com
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