The criticism flowed easily,
but
practical
alternative prescriptions were hard to come by. Reviewing
the Joint Declaration, or, worse still, denouncing it,
as
was advocated in the press in 1989, would achieve nothing,
apart from terminal damage to Hong Kong. There was never a
clear answer to the question: What would you have done
differently in 1983 and 1984, or, for that matter, 1989?
When pinned down, most critics would admit that
they perhaps did not want defiance and breakdown in Sino-
British dealings over Hong Kong. But they felt that the
negotiations had been conducted in too flexible, not to say
supine, a fashion, that passes, always unspecified, had
been sold, and that there had been a general failure to
"stand up to Peking". And here appeared the phantom of an
alternative line, tougher with China, kinder to Hong Kong,
which haunted popular criticism of official policy in the
post-Tiananmen years. It was aided by revisionist history
in Hong Kong, asserting that the territory would have fared
much better had it listened to its own tough instincts and
not allowed itself to be beguiled by the Foreign Office
experts in London.
These experts, the "mandarins" or, more exactly,
the Foreign Office Sinologists, came to occupy a leading
role in the demonology of the time. They were alleged to be
so besotted with things Chinese, or, alternatively, so
overawed by China, that they surrendered automatically to
Peking's demands, Or even, by anticipation, before the
demands were formulated. "Preemptive cringe" was a phrase
much employed. It was also claimed that they saw Hong Kong
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