TNAG-2119-FCO40-3025-Future-of-Hong-Kong-general-1990 — Page 126

34 COMMENTARY DECEMBER 1990

already diminished and its future prosperity in grave doubt. Simultaneously, the young middle- class Chinese who made modern Hong Kong such a success are fleeing to Canada, Australia, the United States, and Singapore. The money, too, is departing. the economy is stagnating, and the social tabric has begun to unravel. Even the most dispassionate of local analysts fear that civil order may break down in Hong Kong well before 1997. and that it will be necessary to call in mainland security forces to restore peace. Then the humil- ated British will choose whether to slink home or be reduced to pathetic figureheads.

Privately. British officials concede, the handover of Hong Kong is sad and unfortunate. But they quickly make two assertions in their own defense. First, they claim, the reversion of Hong Kong to China in 1997 was inevitable and unavoidable. And second, they add, since signing the Joint Declaration of 1984. the Brush have been doing the best they can for the people of Hong Kong under difficult circumstances.

-in

Both British claims are false. First. China's takeover was not inevitable and could have been avoided. China, in fact, had no intention of reas- serting control of Hong Kong in 1997 until— those same golden early months of 1979—a major blunder by British officials set in motion a chain of events that prompted the Beijing government to reverse its policy of allowing British colonial rule to continue indefinitely. Second, since 1984 the British government has betraved the people of Hong Kong by allowing the People's Republic of China to begin subjugating them even while British rule continues.

For the 1979 blunder that ultimately delivered Hong Kong into China's hands. Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher cannot be held responsible. The blunder occurred, significantly, during the dving days of the 1974-79 Labor government, just weeks before she became Prime Minister. Later, in 1982 and 1983. Mrs. Thatcher would fight a ferocious, though spectacularly unsuccessful, last- ditch battle to save the city-state that for her epitomized the virtues and rewards of free markets and hard work. But since she signed the 1984 Joint Declaration, her record has been a bad one. Pri- vately. it is said, Mrs. Thatcher is deeply distressed at the prospect of this free and vibrant city slip- ping back under Communist rule just as the people of the Soviet bloc are shaking off their chains. But in her public role, she must be held ultimately responsible for Britain's pathetic fail- ure since 1984 to do what it could to protect the rights and freedoms of the people of Hong Kong.

III

'HEORETICALLY, as visitors to Hong

takeover was always just a phone call away. The British quite sensibly never pretended they could

defend the tiny colony if China invaded; the soldiers of the People's Liberation Army could set out at dawn and be patrolling the streets of Central by lunchtime. And even such a simple military operation would have been unnecessary. To take control of Hong Kong, the Chinese au- thorities had only to stop the flow of water and food from the mainland for a few hours.

But this they never did. even at the frenzied height of the Cultural Revolution in 1967. Even Mao Zedong, the great anti-imperialist, wanted. Hong Kong kept the way it was the PRC's entrepôt, its main source of foreign exchange, and its window on the world. As China settled back into bleak Communist normality in the early 1970's, the teeling grew that the phone call might never come. In 1972, the PRC signaled its satis- faction with the status quo by telling the United Nations to take Hong Kong off its list of colonial territories. Hong Kong was sovereign Chinese territory, but its ultimate status would be settled in an appropriate way when conditions are ripe.

At the same time. China came up with a new formulation suggesting that Britain might remain in Hong Kong indefinitely. Liao Chengzhi, then the senior PRC official responsible for Hong Kong affairs, said in October 1977, and repeated on other occasions. that Hong Kong's status would not change until after the issue of Taiwan had been resolved. Even more then than now, the prospect of Taiwan's rejoining the mainland seemed remote.

Beijing also signaled its satisfaction with the status quo by encouraging PRC-owned companies to invest heavily in the colony. And in 1979. the Chinese leadership invited Hong Kong's gover- nor. Sir Murray MacLehose-the very personiti- cation of the British imperial presence on Chinese soil-to pay an official visit to Beijing.

There was one small cloud on the horizon. In the 19th century Britain had acquired most of the land comprising Hong Kong from the Ching Dynasty under a 99-year lease. The lease did not cover Hong Kong Island itself, nor the tip of the Kowloon Peninsula just across the harbor, both ceded outright to Britain in 1842 and 1860 respec- tively. But it was widely accepted that these two parcels of land could not function as a separate, viable entity. For several years, most of the col- ony's new housing, factories, and port facilities had been constructed in the so-called New Ter- ritories, the area covered by the lease.

All of this should have been academic, however. Since the Communists had come to power in 1949. they had repeatedly stated they did not recognize the validity of any of the so-called "unequal treaties" under which the feeble Ching Dynasty had been forced to cede the three parcels of land that together comprised modern-day Hong Kong. Not recognizing the treaties, the PRC naturally did not recognize the validity of either the lease or its expiry date.