TNAG-1234-FCO40-1547-Future-of-Hong-Kong-1983 — Page 43

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The Institute for the Study of Compact

come under examination here. A central purpose of this paper is to define areas of uncertainty, a process that tends to reduce such areas rather than magnify them. There will be no attempt to superimpose a pattern of conflict into which Hong Kong would be made to fit.

At the same time, those differences and disagreements that exist cannot be disregarded. An understanding of Hong Kong's past is essential to an enlight- ened view of its prospects. The Colony came into being amid a clash of arms (arising largely if not wholly out of British involvement in the opium trade) between unequally matched empires; and China's present attitudes towards Hong Kong are influenced by collective memories of that clash and by the perception of attendant “inequalities”. Anyone who was tempted to ignore this fact will surely have been disillusioned by the emphatic restatements of basic position emanating from Peking ever since the spring of 1982: confrontation, if not conflict, was only too discernible in the run-up to the Chinese-British negotiations which started in Peking in early October 1982.

Nor can one play down Hong Kong's vulnerability to external conflicts and upheavals, regional or global. Two examples from the last half-century are the Pacific War and the Korean War: the first inflicted on Hong Kong three years of occupation, misery and stagnation; the side-effects of the second brought the shock of far-reaching change, alarmingly destructive in its immediate impact even though also to be a stimulant of economic advance.

Hong Kong has shown a remarkable capacity to recover, even rebound, from such reverses. The chance of major political or economic upheavals cannot, however, be dismissed from the reckoning of future odds and contingencies. Even if uncertainty and not conflict is what is being examined, uncertainty itself—especially if prolonged and exploited by external powers—can give rise to mistrust and discord. As a place of trade Hong Kong tends to regard politics as best kept at arm's length, as something more likely to diminish than to sustain that confidence on which business communities everywhere depend. But this very small territory is not immune to the attentions of those who might regard the undermining of Hong Kong's prosperity as an advantage to themselves, if only through incommoding their enemies.

In these respects, therefore, considerations of conflict must be expected to impinge on a survey of the major current uncertainty connected with the future of Hong Kong-which is: "What will happen in 1997 when the lease of the New Territories ends?" This question is of course, as here phrased, one which precludes any categoric answer. This study aims not only to make the question more intelligible and specific, by reformulating it in various ways; but also to provide an outline of possible and probable answers.

However, in order to arrive at soundly based, if qualified, conclusions, it may well be helpful if, before examining the short-term question we concern our- selves first with the longer term: "What, in the light of Hong Kong's development over the past 140 years, are its prospects over the next several hundred?” Arguably, unless one has some concept of a Hong Kong “continuum”—of a line of development stretching from the origins of the territory up to today and then extending (albeit as a dotted line) well into the third millenium AD, one will be less adequately equipped to get any of the short-term answers right.

Prospects for Hong Kong

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A brief historical survey can serve as a base from which to judge the pre- requisites for Hong Kong's long-term survival as a viable and effective entity; if the method involves hypotheses, it should also indicate criteria against which possible solutions of the problem of Hong Kong can later be measured.

THE GROWTH OF HONG KONG: AN UNSTOPPABLE PROCESS?

The uniqueness of Hong Kong is proverbial, and its growth has been a unique process too. "This settlement has already advanced too far to admit of its being restored to the authority of the Emperor [of China]", Sir Henry Pottinger, who was to become the first Governor of Hong Kong, wrote in the spring of 1842; he was referring to building works and other activities that had taken place on the north shore of Hong Kong Island following the landing at Possession Point in January 1841. And it was this initial impression-of development so rapid and so vigorous as to be unstoppable-that persuaded a very hesitant British government to acquiesce in the cession of the island when the Treaty of Nanking was ratified the following year.

Hong Kong was, and is, unique in other respects. A Colony it has officially been for the last 140 years, but it is impossible to reconcile many of its main features with the common image of a colony. In the first place, there was never any intention to settle non-indigenous people in any significant numbers. Hence the original cession, the island, was not regarded as a desirable land estate in itself: it had no intrinsic value, merely utility in that it was an island, it had deep sheltered water alongside it and it lay within easy sailing distance of Canton; and thus seemed to offer a permanent base for trading with China--an alterna- tive and a supplement to the impermanencies and frictions associated with residence in Canton itself or reliance on the Portuguese enclave of Macau.

There were three other prerequisites. Whatever island, however small, was to be considered, it had to be close enough to the mainland to be able to draw on Chinese labour to service and provision it; there had to be some flat, or flattenable, land for building; and there had to be at least a few springs and natural gulleys to enable fresh water to be collected.

Hong Kong Island-despite its smallness (about 30 square miles) and its hilliness, which prompted Palmerston's dismissive summary of "a barren island with hardly a house upon it”—was reckoned to be suitable. The manner of Hong Kong's growth was largely shaped by the original calculations and the extent to which they were proved right or wrong by events.

The insistence on an island was amply vindicated. Insularity made possible the development of a legal and administrative system needed, in Pottinger's words, both to protect and to control the traders.

Equally correct was the assessment of the anchorage. The magnificent har- bour of today--boasting one of the world's largest container terminals and with an international airport as one of its most striking features and with a railhead on its shore-is a far cry from the original anchorage. But it is an extension of it, not a replacement.

As regards the Chinese labour force, expectations were in a sense con- founded in that they have been fulfilled and overfulfilled time and time again.