expired in 1997, and the prosperous colony of
Hong Kong rejoined the rest of China.
Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative government
tried to make the best of this predicament by
negotiating conditions for the return of the
Crown colony, at a time (the mid-1980s) when
the presence in office of a reform-minded Chinese
leadership seemed to promise a liberal future. In
the Sino-British Joint Declaration negotiated in
1984, China pronounced that the government of
Hong Kong would be composed of local people
and that what would be known as the Hong
Kong Special Administrative Region would enjoy
a high degree of autonomy. Britain, afraid to
offend Beijing, declined to pre-empt the choice
of a system of representation by creating a wholly
elected legislature before the Chinese takeover.
The Declaration promised that the:
current social and economic systems in Hong
Kong will remain unchanged, and so will the
life-style. Rights and freedoms, including those
of the person, of speech, of the press, of assem-
bly... of travel... [as well as] private prop-
erty [and]... foreign investment will be
protected by law.
But Beijing’s Basic Law for Hong Kong, pub-
lished in April 1988, raised fears that Hong
Kong’s freedoms and autonomy would not be
respected after 1 July 1997 and would make
meaningless Beijing’s doctrine of ‘one country,
two systems’. In June 1989 the Tiananmen
Square massacre of the student demonstrators not
only aroused passionate sympathy in Hong Kong,
but further undermined confidence in a Chinese
takeover.
For the first time in its history elections were
held in Hong Kong in September 1991. But the
Legislative Council was still dominated by nomi-
nees, just over two-thirds chosen by the governor
and just over one-third by professional bodies,
leaving only eighteen of sixty seats to be contested.
China’s shadow loomed over Hong Kong’s devel-
opment. The attempts belatedly to broaden repre-
sentative government before the take-over as
proposed in 1993 by the British governor was
sharply condemned in Beijing. Democracy is
anathema to Beijing. Only 50,000 favoured Hong
Kong British passport holders were allowed to
come to Britain. The future of the more than 3.5
million people of prosperous Hong Kong lies with
China. The people of Hong Kong have been
watchful and defiant in the new millennium, mas-
sively demonstrating against any Beijing attempts
to circumscribe their freedom and the bases of
their prosperity.
The Chinese of Singapore are much more fortu-
nate in having their own independent island state
to which no one else lays claim. Singapore, which
has been independent since it seceded from the
Federation of Malaysia in 1965, is a well-ordered
state with a democratic constitution, although
one party, the People’s Action Party, has ruled
since 1959. Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew, who
headed the government for thirty-one years until
he stepped down in 1990, was notable for his
authoritarian tendency, his incorruptibility and his
almost puritanical zeal for law and order, which
extended to requiring long-haired youths to cut
their hair short. In common with Thailand and
some other Asian countries, Singapore combated
the drug menace with draconian laws, including
the death penalty. It was, at best, half a democ-
racy. Opposition politicians and parties were
allowed, but the Internal Security Act passed in
1963 permitted the authorities to detain suspects
without trial, and the power of the courts to
review administrative decisions was severely
restricted. Repressive politically, Singapore was
economically free – enterprise was encouraged
and since the island, like Hong Kong, was
without resources except fish, manufacture and
trade flourished.
Lee kept a watchful eye on his chosen succes-
sor, Goh Chok Tong, remaining in the govern-
ment as ‘senior minister’ and staying as general
secretary of the Action Party. Democratic progress
of sorts was made in Singapore in the general elec-
tion held in August 1991, when the opposition
quadrupled its representation, from one to four
members, albeit swamped by the ruling Action
Party’s seventy-seven. Singapore remained an eco-
nomic powerhouse in Asia in the 1990s, robustly
tied to the West – the government welcoming the
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