Hong Kong. Were we hoodwinked ?

[Yorkshire 53]

There are some older threads on HK, but they don't deal with the following.

 

Just dug out an old cutting I saved from 'letters to the editor' from the Sunday Telegraph of 16.2.1997, from a Mr.William D. Holmes of Idridgehay, Derbyshire. ( wherever that is !); to quote :-

 

' One of the great misconceptions of modern politics is that Hong Kong was only "temporarily" British because it was subject to a 99 year lease.

 

The great island metropolis of Hong Kong has NEVER been subject to any lease of any description. Under the Treaty of Nanking in 1842, China ceded the island to Britain in perpetuity. Likewise, no lease ever covered the adjacent "sister city" of Kowloon which was acquired in 1860. The 99 year lease agreement just covered an area on the mainland known as the New Territories.

 

In needlessly surrendering both Hong Kong and Kowloon, the Conservative Government therefore betrayed the vast majority of the colony's population and totally hoodwinked most of the British public.'

 

Anyone able to contest that version of events, for I can't see any British Government hoodwinking the public, can you ?! Doubt Britain could have held on too long given China's rising power and Britain's continued decline since WW2.

[NigelFargate]

No, we were not hoodwinked.

 

we had no choice to cede HK to China. what was the alternative? send a few gun boats to stiffen our resolve?

 

It was realpolitik.

 

All we could do was to cover up our powerlessness with the semblance of a mutually agreed deal.

[Annie Bynnol]

The 99 year lease agreement just covered an area on the mainland known as the New Territories.

 

Which supplied nearly all the water.

Had all the major docks.

Had half the population.

Had 85% of the land.

 

The territories of Hong Kong and the forcibly demanded Kowloon territories could not have been sustained without massive financial costs to the tax payer.

 

Like another former colony, the USA, the profit extracted by British interests far exceeded the costs of our governing- unlike Canada, India, Australia, NZ etc.

[NigelFargate]

I was speaking to a guy from HK recently and he said that he had difficulty understanding the Mandarin Chinese language. There are probably lots of other differences too between mainland China and HK. However, I think the British government under Thatcher did the best they could in extricating the UK from a difficult situation leading to the 1997 leaseback.

[Jeffrey Shaw]

I was speaking to a guy from HK recently and he said that he had difficulty understanding the Mandarin Chinese language. There are probably lots of other differences too between mainland China and HK. However, I think the British government under Thatcher did the best they could in extricating the UK from a difficult situation leading to the 1997 leaseback.

No, there was no 1997 leaseback. That year, the lease ended.

[NigelFargate]

No, there was no 1997 leaseback. That year, the lease ended.

 

 

Doesn't that amount to the same thing?

[Yorkshire 53]

Just checked, Idridghey is near Belper, way down past the Matlocks.

[hotrock]

Nothing to do with the politics side of this, however i was there for the handover parade. I was 1 of the handpicked 100 RAF Regt Queens Colour Squadron that were in the display for the handover parade, which was held on reclaimed land by the side of HMS Chatham.

We were then escorted off the parade and loaded onto barges that sailed inbetween the firework display barges loaded with tonnes of fireworks (the heat was frighteningly intense) we were dumped at Kai-tak airport under strict instruction that all British Service personnel were to be off land by midnight.

Amazing to be involved in a small part of a historical moment in time

[blake]

the British had to get out of there, and they did. They were probably quite demoralised. They'd been there for a long time.

 

obviously there should not be a visible British security prescence in places like Hong Kong, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, etc. Apart from the locals not liking it at all, it's oh so very expensive and tax payers back in Britain, while they might like seeing the Union Jack on the television in places like that, will definitely not like, paying the bill.