Hong Kong handover - Ten Years of Chinese sovereignty

10 years have already passed...

Time flyes...

Jun 30th 2007 HONG KONG
From Economist.com

The resilience of freedom

THE torrential rain that fell on Britain's end-of-empire parade on the night of June 30th 1997 conjured up apocalyptic visions of the future of Hong Kong. Prince Charles bequeathed a

sodden city to Jiang Zemin, China's president, and left on board his yacht with Chris (now Lord) Patten, the last British governor. That very night the city's new masters swore in a new "provisional" legislature appointed to replace one elected under British rule. But there were no round-ups of degenerates, dissidents or democrats, and no newspaper closures.

It is tempting to argue that Hong Kong has changed China more than the other way round. Certainly China has changed the more, though Hong Kong's role in this is debatable. Yet as Hong Kong and China celebrate the tenth anniversary of their reunion, their self-congratulation seems justified. An experiment without historic precedent, the transfer of Hong Kong's sovereignty while keeping its unique way of life, has come off—so far.

What has not changed in the "Hong Kong Special Administrative Region" (SAR) of China is more obvious than what has. The city streets still hum to the rhythm of commerce. The skyline remains one of the glories of urban ambition. Government offices are adorned with China's state insignia but the street names still celebrate former colonial governors. And servants of the colonial regime still play important roles.

Drastic changes, however, were never likely. The 1997 handover was part of a process rather than a life-changing event. China never recognised Britain's 99-year lease on the New Territories granted in 1898 nor indeed the treaties ceding Hong Kong island and Kowloon in perpetuity. But the expiry of the lease presented practical difficulties so China agreed to negotiations with Britain that led to the 1984 "Joint Declaration", confirming Hong Kong's reversion to China at the end of the lease.

Unusually, the change of sovereignty was preceded by a long planning period. Unprecedentedly, China agreed that the transfer would happen on the basis of "one country, two systems". Until 2047 Hong Kong would keep its own economic and political system and enjoy autonomy in everything except foreign affairs, defence and national security. This was an extraordinary concession for a proud, resurgent nation. It reflected the vision of Deng Xiaoping, who was opening China up after the autarkic blind alley of Mao Zedong's Cultural Revolution. No Chinese leader since has enjoyed the popularity of Deng in those early years.

Even so, there were doubts. The whole point of Hong Kong, both for people living there and foreigners doing business with it, was that it was not quite China. By 1997 it had become a prosperous, service-oriented economy and a sophisticated, cosmopolitan society. China was a poor agricultural nation in the throes of the world's fastest industrial revolution.

Hong Kong's was a unique political system: undemocratic but free. China was, and remains, undemocratic and unfree. Optimism in the late 1980s that its opening-up might include political liberalisation was crushed by the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989. For a generation in Hong Kong, that was a defining moment. But after 18 years Hong Kong's biggest challenges have stemmed not from Chinese repression but from Asia's 1997 financial crisis, the bursting of the dotcom bubble, and epidemics of bird flu and severe acute respiratory syndrome. Hong Kong weathered those storms. The economy has just enjoyed its best three years for two decades. As open and free as any in the world, it has proved its flexibility and resilience.

China has kept its promises, and "one country, two systems" is working better than many expected. But its continued success is jeopardised by the failure to tackle the big unresolved issue left at the handover: the establishment of an accountable government checked and balanced by a representative legislature. Hong Kong will never sit comfortably in China as long as its politics is a battle between two camps, labelled "pro-Beijing" and "pro-democracy".

There was, in effect, a mass uprising four years ago, in protest at an "anti-subversion law" that China wanted Hong Kong's government to introduce. Seeing their civil liberties threatened, Hong Kong's people took to the streets and won a deferral of the law. Some expect more pro-democracy demonstrations this weekend. Their political freedoms, too, are proving resilient.