Twenty years ago, Great Britain handed over Hong Kong, with its 6 million residents, to Red China. Keith Richburg of the Washington Post recalls the prevailing wisdom among Western reporters who covered the region at the time — acquiring Hong Kong would transform China…
Twenty years ago, Great Britain handed over Hong Kong, with its 6 million residents, to Red China. Keith Richburg of the Washington Post recalls the prevailing wisdom among Western reporters who covered the region at the time — acquiring Hong Kong would transform China:
Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times suggested that China was inheriting “a colossal Trojan horse” that in time could undermine the entire communist regime.
The optimistic view of the takeover was was consistent with the notion, popular at the time including among conservatives, that we were reaching “the end of history.” In other words, liberal democracy was on the verge of carrying the day worldwide.
Fortune Magazine rejected this view, fundamentally non-conservative in my view, at least as applied to China. In a story called “The Death of Hong Kong, ” it predicted that once business-friendly Hong Kong became infected with China’s culture of corruption and patronage, this glittering international finance hub would become just another typical mainland city. “In fact, ” the article declared, “the naked truth about Hong Kong’s future can be summed up in two words: It’s over.”
This wasn’ t the kind of “end” Francis Fukuyama had contemplated. However, it was a reasonable prediction, especially given the show of intent China had forcefully made in Tiananmen Square not that long ago.
Fortune Magazine was right, as Richburg now acknowledges. China has not become more free and democratic:
China. . .now, under President Xi Jinping, is arguably in one of its most politically restrictive periods since the Mao Zedong era, and certainly since the crackdown that followed the Tiananmen massacre. Human rights lawyers and activists have been rounded up and jailed; some have been sentenced to long prison terms after closed trials, while others have simply disappeared. China’s nascent civil-society movement has been quashed. Websites and blogs deemed critical of the government have been shut down and bloggers and journalists arrested.
