ENG-1992 — Page 19

THE HONG KONG-CHINA PHENOMENON

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WHEN asked to reflect upon the relationship between Hong Kong and southern China in 1993, my thoughts turn to a phenomenon unimaginable to the young of Hong Kong today. Well into the 1970s, one of the highlights of a tourist stay in Hong Kong was a visit to Man Kam To, then a sparsely populated outpost not far from Lo Wu. From a vantage point there, the visitor thrilled at the opportunity to peer into inscrutable, unreachable 'Red China'. What mysteries lay beyond that barbed wire fence? Few could imagine, and fewer had ventured beyond the border. To the visitor, the rare glimpse of a peasant or even a water buffalo or bird (crossing the fence at will) provided the basis for many a tale told to friends and family at home.

For nearly three decades, the curious had no choice but to settle for the vicarious thrill of such a fleeting look across the border. A relatively small number of people did have contact like the amahs and construction workers who would return for Spring Festival, Ching Ming or Chung Yeung heavily laden with packages for family and friends. Private residents crossing the border did not number more than a few hundred thousand per year. For those who made the trip, the crossing of a few short kilometres was not a simple affair. It was not until 1979 that a nonstop train service between Hong Kong and Guangzhou was introduced, cutting what was previously an all-day ordeal (including an obligatory stop at Lo Wu and a walk over the railway bridge to the Chinese side), to under three hours. In 1978 1.3 million Hong Kong residents entered China while there were 24 800 visitor arrivals from the PRC to Hong Kong, including PRC nationals residing in the PRC and overseas. In 1990, by contrast, Hong Kong residents made over 16 million trips to China, while more than 370 000 People's Republic of China residents visited the territory.

Official contact was limited to the customs officials checking shipments of choy sum, pigs, or chickens as they crossed the border, or those responsible for ensuring the flow of water to Hong Kong, so vital to a still rapidly growing population. From time to time, an accident at sea or (more frequently) illicit border crossings would bring the need for contact and co-operation among security officials, which promptly ended at the conclusion of the incident in question. A combination of China's self-imposed isolation and outside suspicion of the regime assured an absence of contact between higher-ranking Hong Kong officials and their counterparts to the north.

In Guangdong, attempts were made to limit awareness of what lay across the banks of the Shenzhen River in Hong Kong. Official propaganda portrayed life in Hong Kong as a sad affair, with the common man oppressed by colonialist masters and capitalist exploiters.

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