at liberty. Peking argued that since Hong Kong was part of China, the British had no right to bar Chinese citizens from entry.
86
Similarly, while China has adopted a restrained attitude towards British colonial and its effects on the inhabitants of the Colony, it has intervened several times with protests to indicate that the British authorities may go so far and no further. In 1957 China protested over plans to move 7,000 people because of a construction project. When this protest was rejected by the British, China made a second protest. The British, China stated, had tried "to deny the Chinese government its legitimate rights to protect from infringement the legitimate interests of the Chinese residents of Hong Kong and Kowloon". This would appear to be the furthest that China has gone in claiming to have the right in practice to look after the inhabitants of the Colony. Roughly similar warnings were issued during the British repression at the time of the Cultural Revolution to the effect that Britain did not have unlimited freedom of action to suppress the Hong Kong masses.
87
Inhabitants of Hong Kong are categorized neither as fully fledged citizens of the People's Republic nor as overseas Chinese (hua qiao). Instead, they figure in a special category, compatriots (hua qiao).88 Hong Kong, like Macau, but unlike overseas Chinese communities (or Taiwan), sends delegates to the sessions of the National People's Congress in Peking.
90
Furthermore, although the position of Hong Kong may strike many as an ano- maly (which it is), both China and the majority of the inhabitants of the Colony do see it as part of China, China not only supplies Hong Kong with much of its water; in time of crisis it has supplied it with extra quantities of rice and come to its assistance with oil. It puts into practice what it says about Chinese citizens being al- lowed to move freely from one part of China (the People's Republic) to another (Hong Kong): in fiscal 1955-56, for example, 19,000 more people left Hong Kong for China than moved the other way. 89 In 1950, immediately after the victory of the Revolution, 200,000 left the Colony for the People's Republic. China, unlike the British authorities in Hong Kong, imposes no quota system. China made the same point to the UN in 1972: people moving from one part of China to another were and are a purely internal Chinese concern.
91 China's policy, which may look curious to some in the West, appears to be well understood in Hong Kong. China, it is argued, looks after its compatriots when they are in need: with rice (in 1959-60), oil (1973-74), water, or whatever.
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China has given no detailed interpretation of what it means by the phrase "when conditions are ripe". In 1955 China put forward a proposal for stationing an official representative in Hong Kong. This move, interestingly, was welcomed by the British charge in Peking, but vetoed by the Governor of the Colony, Sir Alexander Gran-
tham.92 This represented a clear case where the colonial ruling group asserted its
autonomy from, and predominance over, the London government. China put the same proposal forward again in 1971, pressed the point with the British Foreign Secretary, Sir Alec Douglas-Home, during his visit to China in October-November 1972, and reiterated it strongly during 1973.93 In particular, China linked the pro- posal with several matters close to the Hong Kong administration's heart: first, the possibility of a direct Hong Kong-Canton rail link (i.e., without passangers having to disembark and walk across the frontier); second, with the possibility of direct
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