informed analyst and historian, indicated the kind of
doubts that arose. The reasoning behind the treaty, it was
admitted, was impeccable; but, illogically, the question
recurred, could not some other solution have been found?
These misgivings, stemming from the fact of the
lease and the nature of the Peking government, were
aggravated by the painful history of nationality
legislation and the removal, in 1962, of the right of any
Hong Kong residents to settle in Britain. The hard
political reality, that no British
government could
contemplate as immigrants the numbers involved, was in
practical terms a complete answer. But again there was the
nagging doubt, perhaps we should have done more. Perhaps
the territory had to be handed back, but not the people.
Communist
There was also a belated sense of guilt over the
failure to introduce democracy to Hong Kong well before the
negotiations and an exaggerated claim for its efficacy as a
defence against
encroachments. What was
overlooked was its inefficacy if it merely provoked a
backlash, and the certain hostility of the reaction from
Peking in the years after the Communist take-over in 1949 to
any moves toward more popular government in the colony. The
Chinese had made it plain enough to us and their contacts in
Hong Kong that moves towards self-government would be seen
by them as steps along the normal colonial road towards
independence and would therefore be out of the question.
Talk now of democratic opportunities missed in the 1960s
and 1970s is therefore unreal. It is also worth noting how
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