From: HE@UCC.UWINDSOR.CA
Subject:      Re:  What the HK governor is doing?  Why?
Reply-To: Shizhong Chen <chen%molly%SDSC.EDU@ucc.uwindsor.ca>
Organization: Indiana University
Date: Fri, 20 Nov 1992 03:57:28 GMT
Comments: To: multiple recipients <CHINA-NT@UGA.CC.UGA.EDU>

The fact that the British chose to democratize Hong Kong now says a lot
about their motives. After all, they have kept the Kong Kong people under
despotic colonial rule for over a hundred years. One has to ask why the British
have denied democracy to Hong Kong for so long only to want so much now to give
it on the eve of handing it over to China.

The British behaviour has changed beyond recognition. It is a flip-flop
tantamount to your jailor insisting on setting you free. But the reasons behind
the behaviour have remained the same as they were.

Hong Kong without democracy certainly served the British interests well. A
democratic Hong Kong could have never accepted the British rule in the first
place, let alone to allow itself being used as an Opium port for decades.

Also the Hong Kong people, being Chinese, must have been considered unfit
for democracy, since they happen to be ruled, luckily, by a so much superior
race, the white British. Therefore, in virtue of the British rule, a democratic
Hong Kong seemed an alien idea, and it was so for well over a century. Dumb
are those who would ever question this. Of course, few did question.

Times have changed, so much so that those who have always kept a tight lid
on democracy in Hong Kong can now be well served by instituting democracy
in Hong Kong. Conceivably, the Chinese government in Beijing may soften its
opposition to the exhaustive British milking of Hong Kong money if it can make
a deal with the British over the so-called democratic reforms. And if the
Chinese government doesn't take the hint, why not punishing it by spelling some
trouble for it? After all, China is a communist country, and who would dare to
fuss about trying to undermine such a regime?

And of course, the change of times has also qualified the Hong Kong Chinese
for democracy, for the first time ever. After all, they have been ruled by
the all-wise British for so many years, and when compared with other low, low
Chinese, they are more than entitled to democracy when Hong Kong reverts to
Chinese rule.

It is apt to quote an old Chinese saying here: The sovereignty may change
hands, but the disposition remains the same (Jiang shan yi gai, ben xin nan
yi), the disposition, I guess, of both the British and the Chinese.

Herb

PS:

Comments are welcome.
----------------------------Original message----------------------------
>From: LZHENG%IUBACS.BITNET@uga.cc.uga.edu (Lian Zheng)
>
>The British is near the end of the control over HK.   Onething they want to do
>most is to transfer as much wealth from HK to Britain as they can.
>
>   The people in HK are very good-hearted people, (look at their reaction
>to 6.4,  to the flood relief in China),  they desreve democracy to protect
>themselves against possible troubles in the future.  But they need to
>be careful to those who use the name of democracy for other purposes.

Fei 1 Wo 3 Zu 2 Lei 4, Qi 2 Xin 1 Bi 4 Yi 4. This ancient wisdom tells us
that we can never trust those foreign devils. (Unfortunately, to go with it,
there is often another quotable: Ning 2 Yu 3 Wai 4 Zu 2, Wu 4 Yu 3 Jia 1
Nu 2.)

What I don't get, though, is how the the conflict was inflicted, why there
is this conflict, why the Hong Kong people, who also share the same heritage
of the Chinese wisdoms, favor the democratization program by the British
ghosts, how the democratization will help to transfer the wealth from HK to
Britian, and how the wealth was created in Hong Kong at the absence of CCP
control but started to flow out with the emigration of Hong Kong businessmen
(who, according to William Deng who only welcomes comments from political
economists to his view points, are against the democratization) merely at the
sight of the approaching of 1997? If we remember history well, we should know
the exact same transfer of wealth happened in Shanghai in 1949. Before that
time, HK people looked up to Shanghai, the then Pearl of the East, just as
Shanghai people look up to Hong Kong, the Pearl of the East till 1997, now.

Yesterday, I read a New York Times article on Hong Kong. The main criticism
I have towards the British Government is not that they promote more democracy
now, but why they did not do that earlier. It is indeed very disgraceful of
them to disallow Chinese people in Hong Kong their rights until now when the
British control is no more than five years.

Shizhong Chen
Newsgroups: talk.politics.china