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62 Million Seconds — and Counting

Derek Ingram reports from Beijing
***The Chinese see the return of Hong Kong as a landmark in their history, the righting of wrongs done by the colonialists in the last century. In addition, they see the formula of "one country, two systems" that they have pledged to maintain for the next 50 years, as a dress rehearsal for the return in the 21st Century of Chinese sovereignty to Taiwan. ***
IN front of the entrance to the China Revolutionary Museum in Tiananmen Square stands a huge electronic clock It is sponsored, as'everything is these days in iBarket-onented China, by among others the Xinhua News Agency and the Lotus Mower Gourmet Powder Group of lining City.
The clock counts down in days and seconds the time left before China resumes sovereignty over Hong Kong on 1 July 1997 By placing it so prominently in the heart of the capital the Chinese are making a statement
The return of Hong Kong is seen as a historic moment for the nation: if the Chinese had been sitting in the Isle of Wight - the tiny island off southern England — for 150 years the British would see the return of its sovereignty as a milestone in their history
In a different way, the re turn of Hong Kong is of great significance in British history
It is the final chapter in the demolition of the British Em pire that began with the inde pendence of Indu on 15 Au Sst 1947. From first to last, : process will have taken 50 years, all but a few weeks.
The coming of Black rule in South Africa last year was the penultimate chapter of decolonisation. Hong Kong is the last, only the uniest rem nants of the Empire will remain after that Gibraltar, Bermuda, St Helena, the Falklands and one or two others
The end of Hong Kong as a colony differs from every other British act of decolour sation since it is not becoming independent but being handed over to another power (as no doubt will even tualiy happen to Gibraltar and the Falklands)
Other acts were physically more traumatic and sometimes bloody (India , Kenya, Cyprus for example!, but this last one is politically one of
the trickiest. China rightly sees Hong Kong and nearby Portuguese Macao as part of its territory and the formula for their return as a rehearsal for the return of Taiwan, which the anit-communist Nationalist Chinese have ruled since 1949.
China plans to use the "one nation two systems" formula for the return of Hong Kong worked out with the British in 1984, by which the former colony retains its current mode for 50 years as a Special Autonomous Region (SAR), for Taiwan once the government there is prepared to agree
In the meantime, an economic hinterland is being set up along the Chinese coast opposite Taiwan in the same way that a huge industrial hinterland has been created around Hong Kong.
Taiwanese entrepreneurs are at work and trade with Taiwan is growing, even tough China has no diplo-
matic relations with it.
In the first quarter of this year Taiwan's trade with China, channelled through Hong Kong , rose 40 per cent. Taiwanese Premier Lien Chan says that by 200 China, not the United States may be Taiwan's largest trade partner.
The return of Hong Kong was always expectea to be difficult In Chinese minds it is not just a question of taking back what is their land; Britain acquired the colony as a result of the First Opium War (1839-42), which it fought in order to force the opening of Chinese ports to trade in opium.
Opium from India paid for Britain's imports from china. The restoration of sovereignty in 1997 is seen as righting wrongs done by this and the Second opium War [ 1856-60) which Led to the burning or the Summer Palace in Beijing and a treaty giving European states even more trading privileges at Chinese expense
Western punitive vengeance in the wake of the Boxer Rebellion by Chinese nationalists in 1900 is also part of these bitter colonial memories
Over 150 years Britain made a success of Hong Kong which must have long riled the Chinese That said, the reality is that the colony was built by methods Britain scorns at home — on the back of cheap, near-slave labour, no democracy, and often massive corruption.
Hong Kong became one of the most successful pieces of real estate in the world, so that Chinese people swarmed into Hong Kong for a better life
All British colonies were run autocratically, but in the last stages before indepen dence — and sometimes a long time before, as in India, the Caribbean and West Africa - the people were given considerable democratic rights.
Not so in Hong Kong. Until a few years ago a curious situation existed where there was almost complete freedom pf expression but no democratic political system.-The governor, and through him the British government, ruled supreme
The British and the Hong Kong Chinese got on with making money and with that they created a community that was, by most Asian stan dards socially well served Cr»uip«d their tower blocks, they nonetheless achieved a good standard of living and educational and medical facilities.
Hong Kong became a unique example of a benevo lent autocracy. The British always argued that the Hong Kone people were not interested in politics
The wealth generated by the tiny colony was stagger ing Post World War Two Hong Kong has l>een ptopor tionately hugely more of an economic success than its owner, Britain. Chinese and British busmess people hav< proved a winning combination.
However, it is not fair to compare the relative performances of Hong Kong and China Hong Kong is 409 square miles with six million people China is 3.7 million square miles and 1.2 billion people
In 1949 China was in ruins after decades ot civil war and foreign invasion Host' r dubious the methods and the suffering was truly great the achievement of the
Communist revolution of 1949 was to feed, clothe and shoe just about the entire population in less than two decades. After that, the country had a ten-year fit of mad ness, the Cultural Revolution.
Tne result was Deng Xiaoping and the end of commu-
nism in all but name. Deng, denounced nationwide as "the capitalist roader" in maoi Zedong's dying years, has performed one of the great somersaults in history, retaining the rhetorical and hierarchical political trappings (but not the blue uniforms) of communism while turning China into a capitalist country.
The last part of the trick is to import all these economic ideas, bringing with them the creation of a huge middle-. class, without the democratic political ideas that usually go with such development in other parts of the world.
Political development and even democracy must surely come eventually with the onset of instant global communication — even though China has never in its history known democracy in the Western sense - but its arrival now could disrupt the whole political infrastructure and divert the country from its economic construction.
The Chinese have watched in Russia the public denum i ation of communism and po litical change take place be fore proper economic transformation and they fear this could be proving disastrous. They arc determined not to fall into the same trap.
However, they are afraid there might be a Trojan horse. Hong Kong. As the colony has become the power home for China, spreading its economic influence throughout a hinter land that is now built up al most all the way to Gwang zou and beyond they are nervous of being politically infected
This is why thev arc So-touchy about British Cover nor Chris Patten, and the modest demo' ,atic reforms which he has been introduc ing at the last minute into Hong Kong
DEREK INDRAM i- ton sulrjnr Editor of Dcnuni News Service.