598 { China’s Quest
make things unbearable for China.”^46 Britain’s effort to democratize LegCo
was perceived by CCP leaders as part of the Western plot to destabilize China
and overthrow the CCP. Qian Qichen saw the East European upheaval of 1989
and the disintegration of the Soviet Union as the “deep international back-
ground” of Britain’s newfound enthusiasm for democracy in Hong Kong.
Events in Eastern Europe and Russia had led British leaders, Qian believed,
to “mistakenly conclude that those events were a forecast of China’s situation
and [future] development.”^47 British leaders believed, once again in Qian’s
view, that they had made too many concessions in negotiating the 1984 Joint
Declaration, but that China’s hard-pressed situation now gave London an op-
portunity to “reverse the verdict” (fan an) on the Joint Declaration, in effect
to renegotiate that agreement. Thus Britain created a “major storm” (da feng
bo) over Hong Kong.
Underlying Beijing’s deep suspicion of London’s democratization efforts
was a belief that they constituted a time bomb being planted in Hong Kong to
explode after reversion. Britain had never instituted democracy in Hong Kong
during its 150 years of colonial rule there. Why did it become so concerned
with it only as they were preparing to hand it over to China? Beijing had made
clear its opposition to elections in Hong Kong in 1958 when Zhou Enlai had
warned a visiting British politician that a British move to turn Hong Kong
into a self-governing entity like Singapore (then being groomed for indepen-
dence) would be regarded as an unfriendly act. Hong Kong’s existing polit-
ical arrangements (then very much those of a nondemocratic Crown Colony)
should continue without change, Zhou indicated.^48 Hong Kong’s LegCo had
been entirely appointed by the Governor until 1985. Then, in 1985, the year
after it was forced to recognize China’s sovereignty in the Joint Declaration,
Britain had implemented indirect elections for functional constituencies for
some LegCo seats. China resisted strongly a British push in 1986–1987 to im-
plement some directly elected LegCo seats.
London’s post-6-4 push for greater democracy in Hong Kong began with
a letter in December 1989 from Thatcher to Jiang Zemin, who in July 1989
had been promoted to CCP secretary general. Thatcher’s letter was deliv-
ered by Percy Cradock, Britain’s ambassador to Beijing from 1979 to 1984
and chief British negotiator of the Joint Declaration. Thatcher’s letter and
Cradock’s elaboration explained that London faced increasing pressure
for an expanded role for direct elections in Hong Kong, and was unable to
ignore these demands. Cradock laid out the argument for more democracy
in the election of LegCo as a way of stabilizing public opinion in the ter-
ritory.^49 Cradock assured China’s leaders that Britain had no intention of
allowing Hong Kong to be a base for subversion of the authority of China’s
government and would do everything possible, within the limits of law,
to prevent this. Cradock found Chinese leaders deeply suspicious of both
British intentions and proposals for a more democratic LegCo. Cradock’s