Abstract
Gary Ka-wai Cheung, Yingguo dangan zhong de Xianggang qiantu wenti [Secrets from the British Archives: Hong Kong and its Post-Colonial Future] (In Chinese) (Hong Kong: City University Press, 2022, pp: 284, Price: HKD 198.00. ISBN: 978-962-937-634-5 (Paperback.).
The Issue of Hong Kong’s Future in the British Archives by Gary Ka-wai Cheung is a historical review of British archival documents in the 1980s and 1990s, including those that were recently declassified. Cheung’s account provides fascinating and valuable insights into the dynamics of the Sino-British negotiations before the signing of the Joint Declaration in 1984. It further assesses the momentous impact of the Tiananmen Protest in 1989 on Hong Kong’s future and the radical political reforms proposed by the last governor of Hong Kong, Chris Patten. The book consists of nine chapters and is structured according to the key events from the 1970s to the 1990s.
The narrative in Chapter 1 started with the end of the 1967 riots in Hong Kong and a report by the British government exploring different options for resolving the future of Hong Kong after the handover, more than 10 years before the negotiations began. This is a surprising and important finding for the study of Hong Kong’s handover and the transition period. It was often perceived that the transition period in Hong Kong started in the early 1980s when negotiations between the British and Chinese governments began. However, according to the archival documents, the transition period could be argued to have started in the 1970s, when Governor MacLehose of Hong Kong (1971–1982) deliberately introduced a series of social reforms, such as a compulsory education programme, to enhance the bargaining power of Britain in the forthcoming negotiations.
The subsequent chapters continued the narrative according to chronological order. The visits by MacLehose (1979, Chapter 2) and Margaret Thatcher (1982, Chapter 4) set the scene and parameters for the negotiations. Beijing has been lukewarm in its initial contact regarding Hong Kong’s future and has held firm on its line of sovereignty over Hong Kong after 1997. The key chapter and climax of the book is Chapter 5. It describes the dynamics of the long Sino-British negotiations between July 1983 and September 1984. The account reveals the lack of bargaining power from the British side because the New Territories part of Hong Kong was going to return to China anyway when the lease expired in 1997. The remaining parts could not survive on their own, which incentivised Beijing to hold out on their red lines. In the end, Beijing got most of its wishes, including the full sovereignty and governance of Hong Kong and the stationing of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) in Hong Kong.
Even when the Sino-British negotiations were concluded, the drama continued as the British colonial government in Hong Kong attempted to implement political reforms in preparation for the handover. Chapters 6–8 detail the gaming between the two governments since the signing of the Joint Declaration. The most interesting part is when the book reveals documents after Patten was appointed in 1992 and proposed what was seen as radical political reform. These are the documents that were declassified most recently, and they revealed the internal disagreements within the British establishment about Patten’s proposal. The longstanding consensus of the Hong Kong policy within the British government was to maintain good terms with China, which was seen as the most effective tactic to extract compromises from Beijing. Patten, coming from a much more political background compared to previous governors, rejected that consensus and pursued a more resolute stance against China. His approach resulted in Beijing’s abandonment of the smooth transition that was agreed upon previously. He was also denounced by China as a ‘sinner who would be condemned for a thousand generations’.
This book provides a brilliant review of the key historical period of Hong Kong’s future between 1970 and 1997, which arguably continues to shape the trajectory of Hong Kong today. For instance, although the political reforms by Patten were knocked down by Beijing after the handover, they did facilitate the participation of a generation of pro-democracy politicians who went on to play an influential role in the pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong after the handover. As a journalist, Cheung is particularly strong at organising archival documents and reports and formulating a narrative account of events that happened.
I also agree with the starting point of the book to reassess history in response to some claims that the British government should have utilised the economic capital of Hong Kong and the economic reliance of China in the Sino-British negotiations. Indeed, one of the key contributions of this book is to highlight the political priorities of the Chinese government. Throughout the transition period, the Beijing authorities demonstrated time and time again that it is willing to sacrifice economic prosperity for the political objective of the sovereignty handover of Hong Kong. China’s actions have proved the overwhelming importance of political factors in the decision-making of the Chinese government.
Nevertheless, this book has two main weaknesses that limit its contributions. As mentioned above, this book is a journalistic account of events. While it provides rich resources for historical studies, it can be forgiven for its lack of academic analysis. The book is descriptive in terms of laying out the development of events and the involvement of different participants in negotiations and interactions. The readers could be left guessing the key contributions of the book to the current numerous studies of the transition period in Hong Kong. Cheung relies on archival documents for the talking, but references to other secondary sources are overlooked.
Moreover, as the author himself recognises, this book is ultimately a one-sided account of the events leading up to the handover of Hong Kong. The perspectives of the Chinese authorities were limited to a few interviews with key participants. Otherwise, their positions were represented in the book by the comments as interpreted and perceived by their British counterparts, which, of course, could be untrue. More efforts should be devoted to finding other sources from the Chinese side to collaborate on those accounts that were documented in the British archives. This could contribute to a more balanced account of events.
Nevertheless, this is an informative book with rich resources for readers who are interested in the history and political developments of Hong Kong since the 1980s. It provides brilliant resources for scholars to conduct academic studies on this important historical juncture. This book also contributes to a reappraisal of the relationship between Hong Kong, China and the UK, which is urgently demanded in light of the recent political developments.