Bobby Chan SINCE the beginning of this year media coverage of Hong Kong has been steadily increasing. Last month, just before the handover of the colony to China, it reached a crescendo.
Most newspaper articles criticised China's lack of democracy and forecast that many pro-democracy activists resident in Hong Kong faced repression. The clear implication was that Britain should never have agreed the handover.
There was very little mention of how Hong Kong came to be a British colony. Clearly the British do not wish to be reminded of their ugly and imperialist past. However the colonisation of Hong Kong also represents the end of Imperial China and the beginning of a new era in Chinese history.
The Oplum War Before the Opium War in the 1840s China was isolated from the rest of the world. Governed by the Manchurian dynasty, its closed door policy existed because it believed it had all it needed. A limited amount of overseas trade was restricted to twelve appointed companies in Guangzhou in the south.
However the need of the west to trade with China increased - in particular in terms of the tea trade. The early trade between China and the west led to a trade deficit in silver bullion. The British government needed another product which could sold to China in order to prevent this. The product chosen was opium - imported from India.
The use of opium led to untold social and economic problems. Various elements within the Manchurian Dynasty argued for a total ban of the trade to be upheld by force.
What is commonly referred to as the Opium War raged from 1840 to 1842 at the end of which China's defeated rulers were forced to sign the By our correspondent IN THE 155 year period of occupation, British rule was exploitative of labour in Hong Kong as well as politically repressive in order to maintain its domination.
Activists fighting against imperialism and colonialism were subject to repression through such laws and regulations as the Public Order OrBlast from the past? Protest cutside Chinese news agency in Hong Kong Nanjing Treaty. Hong Kong island was given to Britain as a base for trade with China. Britain was also allowed to import opium and open five areas for trade with China losing control of custom. Manchurlan decline From here on, massive industrial products were imported into China and as a consequence local production was destroyed. For the Manchurian Dynasty it was the beginning of the end.
In the middle of the century it faced a number of insurrections, the most significant being the Tai Ping rebellion.
At the same time China was again subject to imperial aggression. Between 1857 and 1860, Britain, France, the USA and Russia, together raised war against China.
British demands included the continued legal importation of opium. The war ended with the signing of the Beijing treaty and the further annexation of the Kowloon peninsula to Britain. domination and repression from the authorities in Beijing who are taking over control.
The formula of "one country, two systems" is used rhetorically to promise there will be no change of the social system. Yet its formulation and imposition from above is a deprivation of the right of the people of Hong Kong to decide on the social system they prefer.
* 445½ Following China's defeat in the 1894-5 Sino-Japanese war the Manchurian Dynasty was forced to borrow widely from overseas. China was forced to give up Hong Kong and the other "New Territories" on a 99-year lease.
Colonial rule
Throughout most of the twentieth century the British ruled Hong Kong through traditional repressive colonial methods. During this period the most radical challenge to British rule was the 1922 general strike in Guangzhou and Hong Kong.
After 1967 the British Government realised they had to change the way they ruled Hong Kong and that some local Chinese had to be included in the decision making process.
However the nature of colonial rule didn't change all that much. Until very recently white expatriates continued to control all levels of government. While British citizens had the right to seek work in prove social welfare or increase public expenditure on health, education or housing. This is despite a handover of a reserve of $90 billion by the outgoing government to the new one.
The amount of money spent on the handover "celebrations" was obscene. The fireworks display alone cost $40 million.
The people of Hong Kong must INTERNATIONAL I8 Hong Kong without restriction, citizens of the colony had no such reciprocal right in Britain.
It was clear from the beginning that the British government did not want to hand Hong Kong back to China. Margaret Thatcher argued that the three unequal treaties were all valid. When she realised that the Chinese government would not accept this and that she could not do what she did with Argentina over the Falklands, she began to float another idea - the British government would accept the sovereignty of China but would carry on administering the colony for a further period.
Eventually when the British realised they had to hand Hong Kong back they refused to grant a right for Hong Kong citizens to choose which country they wished to live in. This was effected through the 1981 British Nationality Act, which created a new category of British National (Overseas) with no right of settlement in Britain.
Only 50,000 families of "essential" Hong Kong citizens ( mostly rich and high or middle ranking bureaucrats) were allowed to settle in this country.
Unholy Alliance From the 1970s onwards a small number of Chinese were hand picked to join the Executive and the Legislative Council as unofficial representatives for the Chinese population. These were usually the rich and famous. However the Council had no real power, this still resting with the British-appointed governor.
When the British government finally accepted that Hong Kong had to be handed back these "British allies" were never consulted. Realising they had been sold out, they shifted their allegiance to the Chiguese coverinen Many of them are now members of the Preparatory Committee established by China in order to adsocial rights the people of Hong Kong are now much more linked to the people of the mainland. Facing common enemies their joining hands minister Hong Kong immediately after handover.
In recent years the focus of pro-democracy activists has been to crticise the undemocratic nature of the Chinese state. In turn the British government has used this in its campaign against Chinese government rules.
The pro-democracy activists are not an homogenous group, and their views range from anti-imperialist to pro-British. Not surprisingly they do not all originate from the same social and economic base.
Many of them now believe privately that the best way forward for Hong Kong would have been for it to become independent like Singapore.
The next step Over the past ten years, unemployment and under-employment have been increasing due to the moving of the manufacturing sector into China.
The working class in Hong Kong needs to struggle for a minimum wage and an increase in social welfare expenditure which is equivalent to at least the rate of inflation. This can only be ensured if the right to organise trade unions and political organisations is protected and extended.
The present empty struggle for democracy in Hong Kong diverts attention away from the need to build organisations which link the struggles of workers in both the former colony and in China. We need demands that are more concrete than the ones made by the so-called pro-democracy movement.
The last minute imposition of bourgeois democracy in Hong Kong was a cynical move by the capitalists, but in that it contains limited but genuine rights for workers, these will need to be defended. Labour movements in the west will be called on to take solidarity action. nist Party bureaucrats and corporate capitalists is now made much more possible.