Hong Kong and Macau_ City Guide (Lonely Planet, 14th Edition) - Andrew Stone [10]
The massacre was a watershed for Hong Kong. Sino-British relations deteriorated, the stock market fell 22% in one day and a great deal of capital left the territory for destinations overseas.
The Hong Kong government sought to rebuild confidence by announcing plans for a new airport and shipping port; with an estimated price tag of $200 billion (though $160 billion was actually spent), this was the world’s most expensive infrastructure project of the day. But China had already signalled its intentions loudly and clearly.
Hong Kong–based Chinese officials who had spoken out against the Tiananmen killings were yanked from their posts or sought asylum in the US and Europe.
Local Hong Kong people with money and skills made a mad dash to emigrate to any country that would take them. During the worst period more than 1000 people were leaving each week, especially for Canada and Australia.
Tiananmen had strengthened the resolve of those people who either could not or would not leave, giving rise to the territory’s first official political parties. In a bid to restore credibility, the government introduced a Bill of Rights in 1990 and the following year bestowed on Hong Kong citizens the right to choose 18 of the 60 members of the LegCo, which until then had been essentially a rubber-stamp body chosen by the government and special-interest groups.
Hong Kong is the only place under Chinese rule that still mourns those killed in 1989. Every year on 4 June, tens of thousands of people gather at Victoria Park to attend a candlelight vigil held in commemoration of those who lost their lives.
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DEMOCRACY & THE LAST GOVERNOR
Hong Kong was never as politically apathetic as was generally thought in the 1970s and ’80s. The word ‘party’ may have been anathema to the refugees who had fled from the Communists or Nationalists in the 1930s and ’40s, but it wasn’t necessarily anathema to their sons and daughters.
Born and bred in the territory, these first-generation Hong Kong youths were entering universities and colleges by the 1970s and becoming politically active. Like student activists everywhere, they were passionate and idealistic, agitating successfully for Chinese to be recognised as an official language alongside English. They opposed colonialism, expressed pride in their Chinese heritage and railed against the benign dictatorship of the Hong Kong colonial government. But their numbers were split between those who supported China – and the Chinese Communist Party – at all costs and those who had reservations or even mistrusted it.
The first to consider themselves ‘Hong Kong people’ rather than refugees from China, this generation formed the pressure groups that emerged in the 1980s to debate Hong Kong’s future. By the end of the decade they were coalescing into nascent political parties and preparing for the 1991 LegCo elections.
One of the first parties to emerge was the United Democrats of Hong Kong, led by outspoken democrats Martin Lee and Szeto Wah. The pair, initially courted by China for their anti-colonial positions and appointed to the committee that drafted the Basic Law, subsequently infuriated Beijing by publicly burning copies of the proto-constitution in protest over the Tiananmen massacre. Predictably, China denounced them as subversives.
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top picks
HISTORY BOOKS
Hong Kong: Epilogue to an Empire (1997) by Jan Morris – this anecdotal history of the territory shortly before the handover moves between past and present as it explains what made Hong Kong so unique among the colonies of the British Empire. A dated but highly recommended read.
Hong Kong: Somewhere Between Heaven and Earth (1996) by Barbara-Sue White – this anthology of writings from letters, diaries, novels, poems, short stories and biographies offers snapshots of Hong Kong’s past and its spirit through the eyes of elites and common folks.
A Modern History of Hong Kong (2007) by Steve Tsang – this well-researched and highly readable book by a prominent Hong Kong historian covers the birth of