578
22 }
The Recovery of Hong Kong
Wiping Out National HumiliationStable recovery of control over Hong Kong on July 1, 1997, after ninety-nine
years of British control was a major achievement of Chinese diplomacy. At
least in the Chinese view of things. Deng Xiaoping died some four months
before Hong Kong’s “reversion,” but he played a major role in the successful
recovery of that territory. In the decade and a half before Hong Kong’s rever-
sion, Beijing demonstrated great pragmatism and flexibility by advancing and
then implementing the “one country, two systems” formula that accommo-
dated the interests of both Beijing and London and was acceptable to a major-
ity of Hong Kong residents. In the interregnum between 6-4 and reversion,
Beijing defeated what it viewed as a British scheme to plant a “time bomb” in
Hong Kong that would destabilize China as part of the West’s “peaceful evo-
lution” conspiracy. These Chinese perceptions were severely distorted. British
memoirs and currently available documentation indicate no British intention
to use Hong Kong to destabilize China. Rather, British leaders felt a strong
moral obligation to the people of Hong Kong, which Beijing dismissed as mere
propaganda. British leaders also doubted that Chinese leaders understood the
reason for Hong Kong’s economic success, and this inspired a British effort to
find ways of insulating Hong Kong from Beijing after reversion. But though
Chinese perceptions of British aims may have been distorted, Beijing’s
policies served China’s interests in Hong Kong fairly well. After reversion,
Beijing’s respect for Hong Kong’s relative autonomy combined with deepen-
ing economic integration between Hong Kong and Guangdong province to
fuel a major dynamo of China’s explosive economic rise. The nexus of Hong
Kong and Guangdong became a leading engine of China’s export push.^1 The
fact that the staunchly middle-class residents of Hong Kong were denied their
aspirations of local democratic self-government was a secondary consider-
ation, in Beijing’s view. Fifteen years after Hong Kong’s reversion, Beijing’s
denial of this aspiration became a “time bomb” of Beijing’s own making.