Hong Kong Under Chinese Rule After Ten Years.
A.K. Enamul Haque PhD

On July 1, 1997 China got back Hong Kong, which was given to the British Government in 1842 through the Treaty of Nanjing (following the Opium War that began in 1840). The treaty was a scar on the Chinese stigma for which they suffered humiliation for a century. In 1994, I traveled to Hong Kong, for the first time of my life and realized that Hong Kong is still a colony. It was towards the end of the 20th Century and yet HK citizens did not get the right to choose their leaders, which India got in 1935 long before 1947 (when the partition took place) from the same British rulers. The thing that struck me the most at that time was that most of the signboards/bill boards in HK had English spelling errors. At that time, I realized that the Chinese in HK did not get English in their heart!

However, rumors were running high among the British rulers even before that time trying to understand whether the treaty could be extended or could be nullified. But China stood firmly and asked the UK government that they have no choice but to leave HK and return the territorial sovereignty to the Chinese. The discussion of returning HK to China led to a large scale out-migration of people who had no trust in the Chinese government and thought that they would find a “better” place abroad. Canada, Britain and Australia opened doors for fast track immigration processing to the HK people. It was a horse race for some of the HK citizens to leave HK and windup their businesses. Western press refueled the exodus by creating “stories” full of speculation about “HK after British rule!” – as if the whole world is coming to an end in Hong Kong in 1997! The hype was useful to some extent; it kept pressure on the Chinese government to accept a separate status for HK. Making the thing worst, the British government decided to give the “power” back to the people a year before leaving HK. What a joke it was!

On July 1, 1997 Hong Kong returned to China. China was very careful in handling the new territory. They adopted a “one china two systems” policy and made Hong Kong a separate zone. The result! The Hong Kong economy grew at a faster rate than expected. HK citizens got a country, a proud citizenship (prior to that they had no citizenship!) and in return retained their separate economic system. On July 1, 2007 at the eve of the 10th anniversary of the return of HK to China, the Chinese press was upbeat. Media was proud and explained to the world that China is a strong nation. It has made the world press a laughing stock in terms of their analysis on the future of Hong Kong (or for other parts of the world).

The ride since 1997 was not smooth for Hong Kong too. First, there was the Asian Financial Crisis – HK economy was almost down! Luckily, China was there country (not UK!) and so China stood by and backed the HK economy like one of their own. This is what it meant by their one country policy. After this came the collapse of the real estate bubble that driven the HK economy for long – then the Avian Flu and the SARS pandemic. Yet the HK economy experienced on average a 6% growth with unemployment of only 3% and a huge budgetary surplus.

Most interestingly, the capital flight out of HK that began in the early 90s reversed after China took over HK. The size of Hong Kong stock exchange has passed New York Stock Exchange today. Hong Kong has retained its differences in terms of basic laws. The People’s Liberation Army – whose march in 1997 to the downtown Hong Kong was labeled by the western press as a sign of “repression” is receiving great appreciation from its people. The HK passport let them visit 110 countries without visa formalities and the HK economy is more connected to the mainland economy ever before.

Why am I saying all this? Well it just happened that I am in China now and have been watching all this on Chinese television. True that some of you might say that all that I have said cannot be true but it is also true that I am using numbers to explain the facts. With this story, my appeal to all of you is to understand the western press does a lot of propaganda! Let it be the free press of the West or the state control media of the Chinese government. We should all try to understand that press reports are often conjectures based on radical hypothesis and remarks are swift and too much of over generalization! In terms of predicting the future – the press are equally inefficient like many of the Indian “palm readers”!

Hong Kong 1997-2007: “Not Everything Is As It Seems”
By Philip Shaw M.Sc.

As apocalypses go Hong Kong in 1997 seemed to be on everybody’s radar. I visited Hong Kong in 1993 four years before the zero hour. At the time I felt like I was visiting paradise for the very last time. With a plane leaving in a couple of days, I had my way out.

And that’s the way it felt. Call me crazy. My wife and I were staying in Kowloon, amid the glitz of Hong Kong. To me the takeover hearkened back to an older time. I’d be far away, not worried about anything. At that time the worst thing for me about Hong Kong was flying amid skyscrapers to reach ground at their old airport.

However, at the time I had many opportunities to ask people what they were going to do in four years. From my standpoint it had everything to do with income. My tour guide said all the rich folks were leaving. Finding out I was from Canada she told me there was a new name for Vancouver. She called it “Hong-couver.” Her plan was to stay the course. She realized she didn’t have a choice to leave and the future she didn’t find that scary.

Another person I talked with at time looked at it another way. He was clearly nervous. He didn’t speak much English so our jilted conversation was a bit tough. However, he told me he was very nervous about 1997. Maybe his job as a waiter to western tourists stoked his tension. I’m sure as 1997 got closer he was asked that question over and over again.

This morning I talked with Enamul. As he said he is in China. In fact it seems to be a regular gig for him now. He watching Chinese TV and telling us not to believe everything we see in the western media or western TV. Well, I’m afraid many of us here in the west would say ditto for him. I know for a fact that I don’t want to base everything I see on Chinese television. I know Enamul is not, me neither.

However if this column has a “raison d’etre” its the fact that people from different parts of this earth see things differently. That being the case what is right, what is just and what is really happening out there? I see that first hand when I turn up in Asia from time to time. Being so far away from western circles, Asia always has a different bent on something. You see it in their press, in their streets and on their billboards. Ditto for the rest of the world. As 1997 neared the western media ran wild with the Hong Kong apocalypse to come. We know in 2007, it didn’t happen.

Fast forward to 2003. That’s when your loyal scribe once again found himself in Hong Kong. However, this time is was China and I wasn’t staying long, only a few hours. I had a flight cancelled on my way to Bangladesh because of snow in Newark New Jersey. My job in Hong Kong was to find a way to Dhaka, Bangladesh. I’d been told in Sarnia Ontario; once I was on the ground in Hong Kong I’d have to find my own way.

I lost track of time somewhere on the flight over the Bering Strait. As the plane neared Hong Kong I quickly calculated I still had time to catch a flight to Singapore and get my other flight to Dhaka. Knowing time was short, I almost catapulted out of the plane into the brand spanking new Hong Kong International Airport.

I was quickly confused. All I saw was Mandarin. However, everybody was going that way so I quickly shuffled off. Still, there was no English, only Mandarin. However, I could read “Singapore Airlines”. So after much fast confusion I made it to the Singapore Airlines booth, explained my situation and made it to my next flight with 20 minutes to spare.

However, on that harried run I learned many things. There were English signs and lots of them. Nonetheless, you had to work a little harder than 1997 to see them. The airport was beautiful, just as striking or more so than the glittering Changi Airport in Singapore. In my very short time there, Hong Kong post 1997 looked very good to me.

Like many things in life, we only know what we know. There surely were and are competing visions of Hong Kong pre and post 1997. Both our respective media on each side of the divide do what they do. “Everything is not always as it seems”. The challenge is spreading that little gem around the world.