third party, particularly one to whom we stood in a position
of trust, as with Hong Kong, was something very different,
an inexcusable self-indulgence.
Nevertheless, it must be recognized that official
policy during this period did impose its strains and demand
more than usual self-control on the part of London and Hong
Kong. However logical and justified, the
constant
compromises and accommodations with China did not
easily; and even when spectacular settlements were
achieved, as over the airport, the period of goodwill and
co-operation they engendered proved disappointingly brief.
The Chinese were always difficult; after 1989 they grew
even more antagonistic and demanding. As they saw it, they
were engaged in the final stages of the struggle for Hong
Kong, facing all kinds of capitalist wiles. The task of
British officials engaged regularly with them, as in the
Joint Liaison Group, called for superhuman patience.
Moreover, as the period of British rule dwindled, we were
being driven, on grounds of pure practicality, into wider
consultations with the successor regime and on terms which
progressively less favourable. This was
would grow
inherent in the fact of the transition and the ultimate
transfer.
Reduced to its most precise form, the charge of
the critics was that we had overestimated Chinese strength
and underestimated their tolerance. All our experience,
later, argued strongly
both in the 1983-4 period and later, argued
against such a judgement. But there was no conclusive way of
proof, except by trial. And in October 1992, probably more
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