The Recovery of Hong Kong } 587
that Britain give up its strongest card (swapping sovereignty of the Island and
Kowloon for a continuing administrative role) before negotiations began.
Beijing would try the same ploy again during the 1992–1993 negotiations,
but with far less success than in 1982–1983. Deng explained this stance in
1982–1983 in terms of the force of Chinese nationalist public opinion:
If China failed to recover Hong Kong in 1997, when the People’s
Republic will have been established for 48 years, no Chinese leaders or
government would be able to justify themselves for that failure before
the Chinese people ... It would mean that the present Chinese govern-
ment was just like the government of the late Qing Dynasty and that the
present Chinese leaders were just like Li Hongzhang.^17
Li Hongzhang was the Chinese leader who had agreed to the cession
of Taiwan to Japan at the end of the 1894–1895 Sino-Japan war. Deng con-
tinued: “If we failed to recover Hong Kong in 15 years [i.e., in July 1997] the
people would no longer have reason to trust us, and any Chinese government
would have no alternative but to step down and ... leave the political arena.”
This expression of nationalist statement was probably a combination of negoti-
ating ploy and heartfelt belief. As noted in the first chapter of this book, Deng,
like most of his comrades among the senior CCP leadership, had entered pol-
itics and embraced communism largely because of their dismay with China’s
traumatic and disastrous encounter with imperialism. On the other hand,
with British representatives citing British and Hong Kong opinion to substan-
tiate their positions over the modalities of reversion, it was convenient for the
Chinese side to counter with its own, Chinese, public opinion.
During his 1982 talks with Thatcher, Deng called for Sino-British coop-
eration in managing Hong Kong’s reversion: “The Chinese and British gov-
ernments should work together to handle the question of Hong Kong in a
satisfactory manner. We hope to have Britain’s cooperation in maintaining
prosperity in Hong Kong.”^18 But Britain should not think that it could use
China’s desire for British cooperation to pressure China into accepting some-
thing less than full and complete reversion to Chinese administration. China’s
desire for cooperation with Britain “does not mean,” Deng told Thatcher,
“that continued prosperity can only be ensured under British administra-
tion.” China, acting without British cooperation, was prepared to implement
“principles and policies ... acceptable not only to the people of Hong Kong
but also to foreign investors,” Deng told Thatcher. China was confident of
its ability to successfully handle Hong Kong’s reversion unilaterally, without
British cooperation, if that was necessary. Deng also warned against possible
British attempts to destabilize Hong Kong:
I want to tell Madam that ... the Chinese government ... took all even-
tualities into account. We even considered the possibility of something