The handover occurred, as did the fight between Patten and Beijing leading up to it. And Chris Patten, a politician rather than a diplomat, was the man most likely to take the fight to the Chinese.Ĭuriously then of course the book ends, but the story did not.
The book ends with a remark from Lee Kuan Yew (the Singapore statesman) to the new Governor, that he expected "a real scrap" (fight in British parlance) to occur over the fate of Hong Kong in the last five years of British rule. However, the brutal suppression of democracy protests in Tiananmen Square in Beijing in June 1989 had injected a note of particular alarm in those interested in fostering democracy in Hong Kong leading up to and subsequent to the handover to the China. By then most of the arrangements for the handover had been settled. The author closes his story in October 1992, just after the arrival in Hong Kong of the last Governor, Chris Patten. Cottrell describes how the mood of the population evolved from feelings of bewilderment, betrayal and anger towards an ultimate resignation to their fate. The people of Hong Kong had very little say in how events unfolded, being initially kept in the dark. As Cottrell points out, Hong Kong's situation was unique in that it was a rare instance of a former colony being handed over to another power, rather than being granted independence.
He describes the still largely hidden story of the diplomacy, and of the undiplomatic exchanges, that played out from 1981 to 1992 between Britain and China. Cottrell set out to write the story of how China demanded the return of Hong Kong to Chinese sovereignty, and how Britain ultimately acquiesced.
0 kommentar(er)
