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I have relinquished the administration of this government.

God Save The Queen. 

Patten.

An end and a beginning

11 March 2004

Growing up I had always wondered where I would be when Britain's lease expired over Hong Kong and when we reached the end of the Millenium.

The Hong Kong handover was a day for limited nostalgia; but it was a day that Hong Kong had prepared for for 13 years; a day that was inevitable; and a day that as always the people of Hong Kong would take in their stride, see what happened, use it as an opportunity to make some money and move on !

And there was plenty of money to be made - from souvenirs to banquets!

Indeed the day may have been more symbolic to the Brits than it was to the people of Hong Kong. To the Brits this was the last great outpost of empire. For a generation growing up the imprint of made in Hong Kong had been a part of our lives. The exotic east beckoned. It was also a place where a Brit could get off the airplane and find work. No visa was required. It was exotic but in some ways familiar.

The day itself was strange. It was wet. Indeed it seemed to rain for the next 40 days and nights. A large crowd, including me, gathered outside the governor's residence.

The British had their farewell party. Chris Patten was truly moved. To his great credit he genuinely loved Hong Kong and its people. When the Hong Kong Philharmonic started to play the Nimrod Overture from Elgar's Enigma Variations he put his head in his hands.

Everyone else that day went through protocol; they did what they had to do, no more, no less. At midnight in the new, and leaking, Convention Centre, the British flag came down and the Chinese flag was raised over Hong Kong.

The partying went on all night in Lan Kwai Fong. The tanks did not roll in. The Chinese presence was suitably low key.

Seven years later the debates on democracy continue; Hong Kong's economy remains tied to that of China. The pragmatic people of Hong Kong are learning Mandarin quickly. Chinese tourists flock to the city.

Many people miss Chris Patten. Tung Chee-Hwa has been a poor leader and communicator; too distant from the people and too close to the business tycoons and Chinese leadership.

But for Hong Kong the handover has been an opportunity for growth and greater prosperity. A chance to forge closer ties to the mainland. It is not the handover that hurt Hong Kong. Rather a series of crises, the Asian financial crisis of 1997-99 and SARS both hurt the econmy badly.

But there truly is no where quite like it. And I will always be grateful that the city has been a part of my life.

Some Links

The South China Morning Post's 1997 pages

http://hongkong97.scmp.com/news/todaysnews_fset.html

The BBC's coverage

                                                                                                                                                                               

 

 

 

 

"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.