Whitehall and colonial government never wanted full democracy for Hong Kong
Would the British have introduced full democracy in Hong Kong from the 1950s onward if communist China had not vehemently objected by threatening fire and brimstone?
Would the British have introduced full democracy in Hong Kong from the 1950s onward if communist China had not vehemently objected by threatening fire and brimstone? That would have been the impression from a recent report based on declassified British documents obtained at the request of several Hong Kong newspapers.
Sadly, the article ignores historical context and China's long-standing policy, whether communist or Nationalist, towards Hong Kong.
We are, after all, talking about the decades long before Deng Xiaoping's formula of "one country, two systems" under which the city could have universal suffrage, however defined, while being an integral part of China. Granting full democracy to Hong Kong anytime before Deng's formulation - or before the Sino-British Joint Declaration - would have led inexorably to two things for Hong Kong: decolonisation from Britain and independence from China. This, in fact, is the gist of the matter. While those two outcomes would have been welcomed by many Hong Kong people today, they were never an option as neither sovereign state would have countenanced them.
This was pointed out in a letter to yesterday by veteran Hong Kong journalist Liu Kin-ming. Indeed, this rationale was clearly spelled out in a letter to the dated April 9, 1997 by the late John Walden, a former home affairs director. "In former British colonies the introduction of universal suffrage led irrevocably to demands for self government," he wrote then. "Such a development in Hong Kong was known to be unacceptable to Beijing."
Indeed, Liu quoted Walden in his letter from a speech the latter made in 1985 after his retirement: "Throughout the 30 years I was an official myself, from 1951 to 1981, 'democracy' was a dirty word. [Colonial] officials were convinced the introduction of democratic politics into Hong Kong would be the quickest and surest way to ruin Hong Kong's economy and create social and political instability."
That sounds like our own business and ruling elites, doesn't it? Objection or not from China, it was never the policy of Whitehall or the colonial government to allow full democracy here.
