From: B118789@VAX.CSC.CUHK.HK
Subject:      Bizarre Misrepresentations on CHINA-NT
Reply-To: B118789@VAX.CSC.CUHK.HK
Organization: Indiana University
Date: Sat, 21 Nov 1992 02:20:00 GMT
Comments: cc: china-nt@uga.cc.uga.edu

Just to set the record straight on British rule in Hong Kong, I would
like to respond to comments made by Herb.

Herb writes, "(The British) have kept the Kong Kong (sic) people
under despotic colonial rule for over a hundred years. . . ."

Actually, Hong Kong is a free and open society in almost every sense
of the word. It has a free market economy and the greatest press freedom
of any country in Asia. Personal income is more than US$11,000 per year,
higher than that of most European countries. Local laws are passed
by the Legislative Council, which has more than 50 members, almost
all of them Chinese people. In rural areas, local government is
run by villagers in traditional Chinese style, and in urban areas,
there are District Boards which are almost exclusively Chinese.

Herb writes, "(British behavior) is a flip-flop tantamount to your
jailor insisting on setting you free. . . ."

China has 20 million political prisoners. Each year more than 20,000
people are executed by firing squad. Just next door to Hong Kong, in
Guangzhou (or Canton), they are lined up by the dozens and shot in
public places for crimes such as pimping for prostitutes and
embezzlement. The Chinese government not only does not try to hide
these fact, but it openly publicizes them. Announcements of the
executions are made in local newspapers as a warning to others -- and
if you do not believe what I am saying, I shall send you copies
of the newspaper clippings. In short, Britain is no "jailor": The
real jailor is across The Frontier.

Herb writes, "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."

Hong Kong is a very small community, only about 500 square kilometers,
on a peninsula in what was a remote part of China when the Brits
signed the agreement with China in the 1840s. If the Brits had
not been here all along, then Hong Kong would probably be very
similar today to Guangzhou, which is poor, dirty, crowded and
rife with corruption. Opium is not something the Brits invented,
but something that has a long history in Asian society. It was
carried back to England, where poets like Coleridge and Lord
Byron experimented with it. The British traded in opium at a time
when there were no social constraints on the drug, but
it is wrong to say Hong Kong was an "opium port for decades";
it was a port for any good traded by the British, and this included
opium. Opium is still used on Hong Kong, by the way, and the
British have nothing to do with it: It's traded illegally, like
any other illegal drug.

Herb writes, "(T)he Chines government in Beijing may soften its
opposition to the exhaustive British milking of Hong Kong money
. . . ."

This sounds as though there are container ships departing from
Hong Kong for Liverpool loaded with gold and silver. Everybody
can make money in Hong Kong. Obviously the British have invested
heavily here, and they have made money as a result. However, the
Chinese government has 300 businesses in Hong Kong, including
the Bank of China, which owns the second tallest building in
Asia (on Hong Kong Island) -- not to mention Sino United Holdings,
which controls book publishing, newspaper publishing, record
industries, and so on. China owns two or three large newspapers
in Hong Kong as well. The Japanese have invested very heavily
in Hong Kong, and some major corporate headquarters have moved
from Japan to Hong Kong because of a more favorable tax climate.
Many British firms here have local Chinese businessmen and women
sitting on their boards, and some of them are the wealthiest
people in Hong Kong.

Mak Ging Tai
Hong Kong
Newsgroups: talk.politics.china