An End to Humiliation

The impending return of Hong Kong to China--after 150 years of British colonial rule--is mourned by most Western commentators as a defeat for democracy and autonomy. But in China, the coming transition is celebrated as a long overdue act of historical justice, generating an outpouring of patriotic fervor not seen since the defeat of Japan more than a half-century ago. A huge clock in downtown Beijing has been counting the days and hours to July 1, when the British Crown Colony reverts to Chinese sovereignty; citizens crowd the site for group photos. Across the land for many months now, schoolchildren have started the day by shouting in unison the dwindling number of days remaining until Hong Kong’s return to China. Television, newspapers and magazines are saturated with retellings of the shameful story of the loss of Hong Kong in 1842 and the glorious story of how Deng Xiaoping reclaimed it from British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in the 1980s.

The nationalist celebration has spread to Hong Kong itself. Wealthy Hong Kong Chinese business- men clamor to join a multitude of old and new “patriotic societies” to demonstrate their love for the “motherland.” For the Chinese, who make up 97% of Hong Kong’s population, the “motherland” is, of course, China, not Britain. And, as a general rule, the wealthier the businessperson, the more ardent the expression of patriotism.

On the Hong Kong stock exchange, the most coveted issues are “red chips,” the offerings of mainland Chinese companies. The value of stocks, as a whole, has increased twelvefold since 1984, the year Thatcher reluctantly agreed to return Hong Kong to China on July 1, 1997, on the basis of Deng’s formula of “one country, two systems,” an agreement that once generated dire predictions of Hong Kong’s economic collapse. Recent polls suggest that public confidence in Hong Kong’s future is near an all-time high, with much of the colony’s population of 6 million caught up in the frenzy of nationalistic pride.

The current situation is much as Deng envisioned it in 1984. He then championed Chinese patriotism, regardless of other political beliefs or social goals, as the sole qualification for leadership in the future governance of Hong Kong. Patriotism, in turn, was defined as “respect for the Chinese nation” and “sincere support for the motherland’s resumption of sovereignty over Hong Kong.” Otherwise, Deng concluded, it made little difference whether one believed in “capitalism or feudalism or even slavery.” It would seem there are many such politically flexible “patriots” today, in Hong Kong as well as in the People’s Republic.

In striking contrast to the Chinese view that the end of British rule in Hong Kong marks the triumph of historical justice, the British portray it as a case of a gigantic dictatorship swallowing a small and democratizing city-state. This is the portrait the Western media have tended to reproduce. But it is not a portrait that can survive serious historical scrutiny.

The history of British rule in Hong Kong began under the most dubious of moral circumstances. The island was a part (at the time considered a small part) of the booty gained by Britain as a result of the Opium War of 1839-42. This was a war fought against the old Chinese empire to protect English traders who smuggled opium into China, especially to guarantee the profits of their primary supplier, the British East India Company. The cession of Hong Kong was a provision of the 1842 Treaty of Nanking, the first of the “unequal treaties” that opened China to the economic and political ambitions of the Western powers (and later Japan). The Opium War thus marked the beginning of what the Chinese call their “century of humiliation.”

The spectacle of a war fought on behalf of dope smugglers did not go without protest in 19th-century Britain, either. William Gladstone, several times prime minister during the latter half of the 19th century, was among the critics:

“A war more unjust in origin, a war more calculated to cover this country with permanent disgrace, I do not know and have not read of. The British flag is hoisted to protect an infamous traffic.”

Yet, it was as a result of such a war that Britain acquired the first part of the crown colony. Two other parts were added under similar circumstances: The Kowloon Peninsula, on the mainland across from Hong Kong Island, was acquired after the British victory in the Second Opium War of 1856-60; and the rural New Territories were added in 1898, by a 99-year lease wrested from the decaying imperial regime at a time when a helpless China stood on the verge of partition by foreign powers.

For Chinese of virtually all political persuasions, nothing is more symbolic of their “century of humiliation” than the British Crown Colony of Hong Kong. The special potency of this symbol of national disgrace is due, in part, to the fact that it was the first territorial acquisition in the age of modern imperialism and, in part, from the particularly odious way it was acquired. And then Hong Kong became the archetype of a 19th-century colonial society, where a small European elite ruled over and exploited a subservient native population.

The hierarchical and racist character of British rule was literally visible in the residential patterns on the splendid mountain that stands in the center of the city of Victoria on Hong Kong Island. The British political and economic elite lived at the higher elevations (the Peak); lesser members of the ruling class lived on roads midway up; while ethnic Chinese (save for those who worked as servants in English homes) lived in the flatlands below. This segregation was made a matter of law by the Hill District Reservation Ordinance of 1904, which excluded Chinese (however wealthy) from living on the Peak.

Social separation between British and Chinese in all areas of life (save for business dealings) was virtually complete during most of Hong Kong’s history. It had strong racist overtones, typical of British colonies. In the part of Shanghai run by the British-dominated Municipal Council, a notice posted on the gate to a public park read: “No dogs or Chinese allowed.” And British attitudes were no different in Hong Kong.

The current popular belief that Hong Kong symbolized “democracy” and “autonomy” has no basis in historical fact. Hong Kong is a colony and has been ruled as a colony. Its all-powerful governor was always an Englishman appointed by London, responsible for carrying out policies decided by the British government. Until recent years, the members of such quasi-legislative organs that came into being were appointed by the governor and confined to a purely advisory role.

In light of the political and social history of Hong Kong, it is hardly surprising that modern Chinese political leaders of all ideological persuasions have put the abolition of British colonial rule high on their agendas. During World War II, with Hong Kong occupied by Japan, it seemed that Hong Kong would revert to Chinese sovereignty at war’s end. Nationalist China, after all, was one of the “Big Four” Allied powers, and Franklin D. Roosevelt supported Chiang Kai-shek’s demand for the return of Hong Kong. But the demand was frustrated by Winston Churchill’s opposition and the weakness of Chiang’s regime, about to be defeated in a massive civil war with Chinese communists.

During Mao Tse-tung’s rule, from 1949 to 1976, when a “self-reliant” China was largely isolated, British Hong Kong was economically essential to China, as a source of foreign exchange and as a link to the world economy. Thus, the issue of Hong Kong’s political future was pragmatically allowed to remain dormant, much to the embarrassment of anti-imperialist Maoist ideologists.

In the post-Mao era, with the ascendancy of Deng and his “open door” policy on foreign economic relations, a British Hong Kong became economically redundant, though Hong Kong itself increased in economic importance. Thus, in the early 1980s, Deng summoned representatives of the British government to Beijing and informed them that the Crown Colony of Hong Kong, the last significant part of the once-mighty British empire, was politically anachronistic. Negotiations soon led to the Sino-British “Joint Declaration” of 1984, which stipulated that sovereignty over Hong Kong would be returned to China in 1997, and Hong Kong would enjoy a degree of autonomy as a “special administrative region” of the People’s Republic.

The implementation of the Joint Declaration, and the reversion of sovereignty to China after more than 150 years, is certainly a victory for Chinese nationalism. But it is not necessarily a victory for the Chinese people, much less for the Chinese in Hong Kong. The interests of a nation and the interests of its people are not necessarily identical. The immediate beneficiaries of the change will be members of communist China’s political-economic elite, several of whom have already replaced members of the British elite as stewards of the exclusive Hong Kong Jockey Club. It is a sign of changing times.

The movement for democracy in Hong Kong will continue. But it will no longer be an isolated battle with the old British colonial regime; rather, it will be part of a struggle of the whole of the Chinese people for democracy and freedom, as befits a post-colonial age.