Newsgroup: it.politica.internazionale
Titolo: The end of the Hong Kong anomaly

The end of the Hong Kong anomaly 
17:49 | 04/ 07/ 2007 
 
 
MOSCOW. (RIA Novosti political commentator Dmitry Kosyrev) - Let us
imagine how leading world news agencies will cover the 20th anniversary of
Hong Kong's return to China, in ten years' time. We are sure to see the
same things we have observed now in early July. Headlines and opening
paragraphs will again speak about the demands of Hong Kong opposition
marches. Momentum is a great thing. 
Meanwhile the opposition, which has quite a number of other demands to
make, is focusing on the direct election of the head of government and
legislators in Hong Kong, which has been a special administrative region
of China for ten years now. It is not out of the question that in ten
years' time such elections will be held, or the territory will be moving
closer to them. And then it will be possible to speak about important
steps toward finally dismantling the inherited British colonial system in
this part of the world. 
The process of saying good-bye to the British Empire - meaning the
European way of thinking, not the empire itself - has been going on for
decades. For the 156 years during which Hong Kong was under the British
crown, it had no voting democracy, and its governor was appointed by
London. The empire, until its key parts dropped off after the Second World
War, was not only not a democracy, but remained a racist kingdom. It is
enough to recall an early episode from the political biography of one of
the empire's gravediggers - the great Mahatma Gandhi. At the end of the
19th century in South Africa, a ticket collector threw him off a train
because Gandhi was traveling on a first-class ticket, which was forbidden
for "coloreds." Incidentally, South Africa, many times condemned in the
second half of the 20th century for its racist regime of apartheid, was
merely trying to preserve the old order for another half-century after
separating from the empire. 
But even today, as we see, the British are fond of their empire. They make
it appear in their media reports that Hong Kong is an example of all good
things and a model of democracy for China and all others. 
The point is that the 12-year-old process of returning to China the lands
on which the British built Hong Kong has coincided with a surge in
globalization, or an ideology that paints the Western world and the
Western system of values as the natural leader of the process of creating
a world community that has been going on for several centuries now.
Britain, which never held elections for the head of government in Hong
Kong, has become a teacher of democracy, and China its potential pupil.
And it is still unable to give up this role. The 10th anniversary of Hong
Kong's return is, however, worthy of a more interesting discussion than
the one usually confined to the "democracy vs. non-democracy" comparison.
Over these ten years we have witnessed the disappearance of "the Hong Kong
anomaly" and a modification of the role played by this unusual territory
off China's southern shores. 
Jubilant reports carried in the Chinese press made a fleeting mention of
one sensational figure: whereas in 1997, during British rule, Hong Kong's
foreign trade amounted to 1.1 trillion Hong Kong dollars, in 2006 it
reached 2.3 trillion. 
Yet Hong Kong's survival as a world financial and commercial center seemed
to be hanging in the balance when it was about to come under Chinese
jurisdiction. 
The truth is that for a century and a half, Hong Kong, with its status of
a free port and its British legal system (still in place), flourished
because it was an abnormally healthy part of a sick organism - China,
which first was an ageing empire, then - between the two world wars - a
country of chaos, and later the embodiment of the eastern and less
successful version of Communism. But by the time of Hong Kong's return to
the country and after it, China itself has been increasingly shaping its
system after Hong Kong's pattern. And that meant that sooner or later,
after losing its unique place, Hong Kong could expect, if not to wither
away, then at least to get lost among other Hong Kongs. 
Today we see that this is only partly happening. The country still has two
legal systems, one in Hong Kong and one in the rest of China. But China is
increasingly adopting Hong Kong's ways. It is a fact that Hong Kong's
traditional rival from before the Second World War - Shanghai - has
recovered and is looking up. A further dozen such rivals are challenging
its former monopoly as the "economic gateway to China," including the huge
city of Guangzhou, which is practically right next to Hong Kong. Both are
gradually becoming part of one tremendous economic area in the delta of
the Pearl River. But the continuing mighty growth of the Chinese economy
is giving all Hong Kongs their share of prosperity. And whereas earlier
this territory profited from its identity as separate from China, now it
gains from being part of China and participating in its rapid development. 
As regards democracy, Hong Kong seems set to play the role of a venue for
political experiments to modernize the entire country's government system.
This requires that the opposition in Hong Kong continues to act. And it
has lived up to expectations. It shows signs of weakening, however.
Although as recently as 2003, when Hong Kong lived through a chain of
misfortunes (an Asia-wide financial crisis, two epidemics, several
setbacks suffered by its administration), the opposition could muster up
half a million people in street marches, during the current celebration of
the 10th anniversary of the handover, the figure was only twenty or so
thousand
-- 
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Vero
Mentre in Australia i farmers avevano il diritto di sparare a vista sugli
aborigeni.
Questo fino ai primi anni del 1960.
Da che pulpito scendono le prediche.
Saluti
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