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Hong Kong Under Chinese Sovereignty: Implications

by Munim Kumar Barai
THE count down for handing over of Hong Kong (HK) to China has now come down to minutes and seconds as July 1. 1997 is approaching closer on the calendar. The midnight of that date will also mark the end of the colonial history of the once mighty British empire In the Asian flank. The moment itself would be historic for many reasons and the wider implications the transfer will likely to have in the regional and international economic and political relations. For the first time in the British imperial history, a colony and its people are being handed over to the land of the origin without a shot being fired. For the first time in the efical engineering an exper-nt is going to be done with "one country two system." And by a difference of a day. China is going to be richer by one of the most vibrant economies with its big economic base, developed financial infrastructure. information networks, trade links and above all. with a huge pool of dynamic entrepreneurs. Added with the mainland's impressive economic performance of over a decade, the return of HK into the Chinese fold also puts it on a higher a plane of the race for a great power status in the twenty-first century.
HK's Colonial History
Hong Kong has a colonial history of about 156 years On 26 January 1841 a British naval party raised the Union Jack on the northwest shore of HK when the Royal Navy led by Captain Charles Elliott won the
First Anglo-Chinese War (also known as the First Opium War). Lord Palmerston, the then Foreign Secretary, described the hard-won "prize” as a mere "barren island".
But Britain gained the present respectable 1010 sq km of the colony through three treaties which China always termed "unequal treaties." in the first in 1842 through the signing of the Treaty of Nanking. China ceded HK island in perpetuity. Sir Henry Potinger, the first governor, predicted with prophecy that HK would soon develop into "a vast emporium of commerce and wealth." The "Arrow Affair" sparked the Second Anglo-Chinese War that ended in 1960 when British guns razed the Summer Palace of Peking. Subsequently. China had to cede the Kawloon peninsula as the settlement. Ine third, was a lease in 1896 through which Britain secured the rest of Kawloon peninsula and the Immediate hinterland — the new territories — as well as the more than 230 islands that form Hong Kong archipelago.
HK remained an important harbour of the British imperial power in the East and Southeast Asian zone. From the very beginning. the British officials in HK envisioned the role of HK in the following way — It is occupied not with a view of colonialism. but for diplomatic. commercial and military purposes." HK was out of British nile for about three years from 1941 when the Japanese army overrun the colony in Just two weeks. In the 1970s and 1980s.
HK experienced the economic boom and has become a hub of business and financial activities. In the meantime on September 26. 1984 the Sino-British Joint Declaration on the future of Hong Kong was signed which set up the territory as a "Special Administrative region of China." In the agreement HK is promised a "high degree of autonomy" until at feast 2047 with its own freedoms, Judiciary and financial system. And as the lease period ends. HK reverts to China at midnight on July 1. 1997.
Implications
China has been In the world news for quite sometime for different reasons — the first undoubtedly being the economic one. It has attained and sustained a robust growth for more than a decade, its foreign trade is booming, par capita income is rising, and more importantly. countries near and far have started listening to the Chinese voice with more respect and care. Moreover, the power vacuum created by the disintegration of the Soviet Union has also strengthened China's chance to fill it up and to emerge as a global actor. At this stage comes Die reversion of HK into the Chinese fold. This very single event instantly makes China richer in many ways. Aslo the ramifications of this event would be felt in many areas in the regional and international affairs. My endeavour here would be focussed on the possible economic and political
implications of this event in the immediate and longer terms.
An addition of HK's 6.5 million population with 120 billion people of China will only make a marginal difference. But a tiger economy of about $400 billion annual gross domestic product (GDP) with $181 billion of exports and $ 199 billion of Imports (1996 figures) matters a lot to China. The stock market of Hong Kong is only second to the Tokyo Stock Exchange in Asia. The market capitalisation of the HK Stock Exchange again holds the same position. Every big and medium size multinational corporation operating in East and Southeast Asia has-its presence in Hong Kong. So the merger of HK with China will immediately make It one of the "Club Five" business powers in the world. The vast developed financial network of HK is set to boost mainland's financial market integration with the rest of the world. If China can manage to dispel the fear of the HK’s business community about their future, then China's emergence as an economic superpower may not be a matter of distant time. Probably this assessment has made Jim Rowher to predict that — If in 2025 China could manage to raise the income levels of the average Chinese to the level enjoyed by the average Taiwanese in the mid-1990s. China's economy would be not only be by far the biggest in the world, but equal to some 70-80 per cent of tne then size of the economics of the United States. Japan and Western Europe to-
gether (Rowher. Asia Rising, Simon and Schuster. London, 1995). Well, to happen that much will depend on continu-ing stability In domestic politics and international affairs and neither could be taken as granted on a predictable line.
On political front, the revert of HK to China brings to the fore the question of democracy in the island as well as that of the mainland. The terms of the handover grants a "high degree of autonomy" to the islanders. But Britain has played a tricky game, the art It has mustered over the years of Its colonial rule, In 1991. After ruling the colony for over 150 years, for the first time It Introduced a democratic franchise for a legislative council Predictably, the prodemocratlc own the maior-ity. China has threatened to ban the process due to the perceptible threat to the mainland’s political system in the future. So the result of the handover may lead to a clash of words between the Chinese Communist authority and the prodemocracy forces in the is-
The reversion of Hong Kong can also make China more assertive in dealing with the regional affairs, particularly the complex issue of Taiwan and the South China Sea. And economically strong.
The Chinese economic resurgent will get a big boost as HK comes under Its fold. If this event clears the way for a homecoming of Taiwan In the near future then an era of Chinese economic predominance would be a matter of time.