"The story of this great city is about the years before
this night and the years of success that will surely follow it."
Chris Patten.
The Guardian report on 1 July
1997:
A last
hurrah and an empire closes down
China again master of Hong Kong
By Andrew Higgins in Hong Kong
Tuesday July 1, 1997
With a clenched-jaw nod from the Prince of Wales, a last rendition of
God Save the Queen, and a wind machine to keep the Union flag flying for
a final 16 minutes of indoor pomp, Britain last night at midnight shut
down the empire that once encompassed a quarter of the globe.
Nearly five centuries after
Vasco de Gama launched an era of European empire building in Asia, and
50 years after Britain put the process in reverse with independence in
India, it took only a quarter of an hour of martial pomp and minutely
scripted ceremony to end 156 years of British colonial rule in Hong
Kong.
At dawn today, China stamped
its authority on its new possession, when 4,000 troops backed by
armoured cars and helicopters crossed into the territory. But the army,
struggling to shake off the stigma of the Tiananmen Square massacre,
projected a softer image, with many troops wearing ties and white gloves
rather than combat gear.
In Beijing last night, more
than 100,000 people gathered in the square to count down the last
seconds of British rule, the biggest gathering there since the 1989
massacre, and proclaim the emergence of China as a great power cleansed
of colonial shame.
At the formal handover
ceremony, Prince Charles bequeathed Britain's last big overseas domain
to Jiang Zemin, a former trainee at the Stalin Auto Works in Moscow and
now head of the world's last major, albeit zealously capitalist,
Communist Party.
The occasion, planned since
an accord signed by Margaret Thatcher in 1984, was conducted in English
and Mandarin, languages that most people of Cantonese-speaking Hong Kong
do not understand - a blunt reminder that, unlike previous acts of
imperial retreat, the start of Chinese rule thrusts 6.4 million people
into the embrace of a new master sometimes as alien as the departing
power.
"We shall not forget you, and
we shall watch with the closest interest as you embark on this new era
of your remarkable history," promised Prince Charles.
The transfer, completed in a
glass-encased hall overlooking the harbour that first attracted the
covetous eye of British opium traffickers, climaxed a day of rain and
tear-soaked British pageantry, Sino-British summitry and carefully
calibrated discourtesies.
Less than an hour into
Chinese rule, as the royal yacht Britannia slipped its moorings,
carrying Prince Charles and the 28th and last British governor, Chris
Patten, out of Victoria Harbour at the head of a flotilla of British
ships bound for Manila, pro-democracy politicians gathered on the
balcony of the Legislative Council to protest at China's abolition of
Hong Kong's elected assembly.
"Why must we pay such a high
price to be Chinese?" asked Martin Lee, leader of the Democratic Party.
"We are proud to be Chinese,
more proud than ever before. But why is it that our leaders in China
will not give us more democracy, but take away the modest democracy we
have fought so hard to win from the British government."
A crowd, swelled by
television crews, engulfed Statue Square, an adjacent plaza dominated by
a bronze likeness of a dour Victorian banker.
Throughout the day Britain
stressed its own contribution to Hong Kong's prosperity while China
barely acknowledged Britain's presence. "This is a Chinese city, a very
Chinese city with British characteristics," said Mr Patten, at a British
farewell festival, held next to the Prince of Wales Barracks, now
stripped of its name and full of Chinese soldiers. Radio frequencies
used by British Armed Forces Radio now only crackle with static.
Chinese leaders arrived by
air too late to attend a rain-drenched British farewell festival at
sunset and then skipped a British banquet. But in a small but unexpected
gesture, Mr Jiang shook the hand of Mr Patten, vilified by Beijing as a
"sinner for a thousand generations" because of the modest political
reforms he introduced.
Tony Blair, in Hong Kong for
barely 12 hours, and the Foreign Secretary, Robin Cook, both later
stayed away from a Chinese ceremony to swear in a new puppet
legislature. It was a civil, correct, exchange of property but a far cry
from the warmth and passions - quickly followed by bloodshed - that
accompanied Britain's exit from India.
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