Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - June 29, 1997, Winnipeg, Manitoba S u Isth d a sunday free press Magazine sunday free press editor Jim Carr 697-7292 j of if 1/v,/ Winnipeg june 29, 1997 by risky business Hong Kong China May change each other by Terence Moore editorial writer Charles Prince of Wales Lowers the British Flag in Hong Kong monday night he will end a 155-year Experiment in grafting european Law and unbridled commercial Freedom onto a Corner of China. Britain a shrinking Empire will shrink once again. When a few seconds later president Jiang Zemin of the Peoples Republic of China raises the chinese Flag he will add a magnificent seaport and trading City to the growing Empire of the 48-year-old communist dynasty founded by Mao tse Tung. He will Start an Experiment in absorbing a wealthy capitalist City into a vast poor country whose rulers used to oppose capitalism. Imminent chinese sovereignty has already brought changes to the face of Hong Kong. The mailboxes Are no longer Royal. The stridently anti communist tone of some newspapers has already been softened. Hong Kong residents Are waiting to see what changes will follow As China asserts control. But Hong Kong May also change China. The failure of maoist communal agriculture and Village scale industrialism gave Rise in the 1970s and 1980s to the reforms of the late supreme Leader Deng Xiaoping who opened the Way for private property and commercial markets which have allowed communist party chiefs and their relatives to build private fortunes. Hong Kong where nearly everyone is in business and where government regulation is kept to a strict minimum stands As a wealthy mocking reproach to the poverty and backwardness that maoist collectivism inflicted on China. In Hong Kong the subway trains work efficiently and the downtown buildings Are comfortably air conditioned and the streets Are Well maintained. People who arrive penniless Hope to become millionaires and an astonishing number do so. In Beijing the air is filthy the streets Are unlit and the traffic is murderously dangerous. People who arrive penniless usually remain so unless they enjoy party connections. China gains a magnificent seaport students top practise with new Flag. As More and More chinese learn that Hong Kong works and Beijing does not they May be increasingly curious about the reasons Why. By bringing Hong Kong into China the communist party is taking the risk that individualist ideas of private Enterprise and personal Freedom will catch on and give Rise to fresh demands for democratization. Already the Hong Kong Dollar circulates in chinese provinces nearest the Crown Colony. The Hong Kong Dollar unlike the chinese Yuan is backed by a flourishing conservatively run Economy and is convertible to other world currencies. Along with Hong Kong currency Hong Kong ideas such As the Rule of Law and limitless opportunities for private wealth also circulate in nearby parts of China. Since the chinese government has sworn to preserve Hong Kong a capitalist system for 50 years it has already admitted that capitalism has a valid place in China. Denouncing the abuses of capitalism will become harder and harder once China a finest wealthiest Best equipped and Best run City is a showpiece of capitalism. The chinese government brutally suppressed its last democracy movement on june 3 and 4,1989, in the massacre of unarmed demonstrators in Beijing a Tiana men Square. By resuming sovereignty Over Hong Kong China May be setting up the next Reform movement and the next massacre. The British Experiment in Hong Kong was a spectacular Success while it lasted. Hong Kong was a Barren piece of Rock at the Mouth of the Pearl River in 1839 when Captain Charles Eliot chief superintendent of Britain a Trade in China rescued besieged British opium traders from Canton and directed merchant ships to take Refuge in the Harbour Between Hong Kong Island and the Mainland. The ensuing opium wars led to the 1842 treaty of banking which awarded Hong Kong Island to great Britain. That was one of the a unequal treaties that the chinese communist government refused to recognize in negotiations Over Hong Kong in the 1980s. A few chinese fishing families lived in huts on Hong Kong in 1842 and others lived in boats in the Harbour but neither the British monarchy nor the chinese Empire Parade celebrates return to China. Paid the least heed to them when their Rock was passed from one Empire to the other. British opium dealers soon built docks and warehouses in their midst and the opium Trade resumed. Secure on their Island protected by the British Navy the British opium wholesalers could defy chinese efforts to curb drug trafficking. From their port at the Mouth of the Pearl River they had easy Access to Canton and the distribution networks of Southern China. From these disgraceful origins Hong Kong grew into a trading and shipping Centre and then a manufacturing City. The Mainland Peninsula of Kowloon was ceded to Britain by treaty in 1860. By the 1890s, China was leasing ports to other trading nations. When Britain sought expansion of Hong Kong in 1898, China offered a 99-year lease on the new territories adjacent to Kowloon. Expiry of that lease this year ending the British claim to most of the Crown Colony a territory led to the return of the entire Crown Colony to chinese sovereignty. A continued on Page b4 Hong Kong kids wave their new flags during a Parade near chinese Border ;