11. So it has proved.
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The United Democrats have shown themselves adept at opposition but reluctant to pay the price of being associated with the process of government. The other major group, the more conservatively inclined Co-operative Resources Centre, have yet to find a coherent political programme or organisational structure and move uneasily between conflicting instinctive responses: supporting sound administration; getting on an inside track with China; opposing whatever the United Democrats support; and courting electoral popularity. One of the problems Hong Kong has to tackle over the next few years is how to groom politicians who are prepared to bear the burden of government - with the inevitability of having to take some unpopular decisions - rather than follow the easy course of courting electoral popularity by criticising government policies and defending a variety of sectoral interests.
It
12. The other great challenge for the future is the China dimension. It has always been there; but usually below the surface. For many years after the Communist victory in China, Hong Kong lived in apparent isolation from the Mainland. was only in April 1979 that the first through train ran again between Kowloon and Canton. Before that, the only way to get from here into China was to walk across the old bridge at Lo Wu. There was virtually no official contact. China did not recognise the validity of the colonial administration in Hong Kong. The first official visit by a Governor of Hong Kong to post-1949 Peking took place 30 years later. Contact between officials on both sides was strongly discouraged. The Bamboo Curtain was a reality. Nevertheless, the influence of China was still there below the surface. How could it be otherwise? An increasing amount of Hong Kong's water and food came from China. At any time, a determined effort by China could have snuffed out the tiny capitalist enclave on its coast.
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13. The rules of the game were unspoken but well known. Hong Kong kept China at arms length and vice versa. But Hong Kong avoided doing anything which was unnecessarily provocative to the Mainland or which might rekindle the smouldering memories of China's civil war. KMT agents were regularly pin-pointed and shipped quietly back to Taiwan. The development of political life was slow, both because it was clear that China was afraid of anything which might suggest that Hong Kong was