state than it was in before the new approach was tried in
1992.
It will be a tragedy, the greater for
for being
avoidable. In distributing blame, the future historian
will note Chinese intransigence and an apparent wish,
contrary to Chinese tradition and interest, to humiliate
their opponents. But he will also note, on the British
side, a fatal misreading of Chinese attitudes and
However unreasonable, the Chinese position
tolerance.
was well known before the 1992 venture began; and there
were plentiful warnings of the effect of disregarding it.
Given the balance of power between the two sides, these
were facts to be given great weight in British
calculations; they seem to have been underestimated or
discounted. The public nature of the first British
approach made dignified retreat hard for both sides. The
British objectives remained throughout unrealistically
high. And, in the light of the clear balance of profit and
loss for Hong Kong, if the unilateral approach is
followed, it will be hard to avoid the conclusion that in
the last resort British domestic and prestige
considerations counted more than the needs of the colony.
The final break could be seen as a dereliction of
duty.
Bismarck somewhere has a fine image illustrating
the limits on statesmanship. He speaks of
of the powers
travelling on the stream of time, which they can neither
create nor direct, but on which they can steer with more or
less skill and experience. The key phrase is 'which they
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