The toothless lion whose roar is forever quiet
Updated: 2014-12-04 07:49
By Harry Ong(HK Edition)
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The British lion no longer roars in defiance on the international stage. His decayed and yellowing teeth fell out after the war when the far-flung British Empire vanished in a wave of nationalism that left only two important outposts still under the British Crown, Hong Kong and Gibraltar, plus a widespread collection of piddling islands. The lion, a sad and broken symbol, crouches in a corner, thankful in winter for the occasional warming blast of the Chinese dragon's breath, but never receptive of the gaseous emissions of the Russian bear.
His coat bedraggled and his eyes sad, the lion survives thanks solely to the surging pride he feels for the glory days of empire - when maps of the world showed in red the full extent of British possessions girdling the globe "upon which the sun never set".
Then came June 30, 1997, and the most lustrous jewel in the British crown, the colony of Hong Kong, held in captivity for more than one-and-a-half centuries under an unequal treaty reached at the point of bayonet, sword and gun, had to be returned to its rightful owner - China.
What a crushing blow that must have been for British pride. And for nobody did the cut go deeper to the heart than the last governor Chris Patten, who spent much of his five-year term (1992-1997) putting as many obstacles as possible in the way of a smooth handover.
At the stroke of midnight on June 30, 1997, Hong Kong became Chinese territory again, and Prince Charles, representing his mother Queen Elizabeth II, glumly surveyed the ceremonial handover as did Patten, who earlier that day had lowered and removed the Union Jack from its flagstaff at Government House, reverently folded it and given it pride of place among the government memorabilia to take back to Britain.
Prince Charles sought solace in his polo ponies but Patten, a classic bad loser, seems to have vowed to do everything in his power to disrupt, discredit and destabilize what was now a special administrative region of China.
This background puts in true perspective the current attempts by a party of eight British MPs to visit Hong Kong, where undoubtedly their first move would have been to hurry to Admiralty, Mong Kok and other trouble-spots to encourage the students and other demonstrators blocking the streets.
Not wishing to see these interlopers "adding fuel to the fire" in the present situation, the Chinese embassy in London sensibly informed them that they would be refused entry to the SAR should they travel here, with the result that these politicians now have the unmitigated impudence to claim that Chinese officials are making a "mistake" and suggesting the visa issue is for the Hong Kong government, not Beijing.
The normally level-headed British Prime Minister David Cameron has also joined the fray, stating via his spokesman that the decision was "mistaken, counter-productive and amplified concerns, rather than diminishing them".
Richard Ottaway, chairman of the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Select Committee and who would therefore have been leader of the proposed visit, gave this grossly insulting retort when told of the visa ban: "I think this is a mistake to block our entry. China has no authority to do this. It brings into question China's attitude towards Hong Kong."
What? "China has no authority to do this?" Let's get this absolutely straight. For the past 17 years Hong Kong has been under Chinese sovereignty, and Beijing has held the responsibility for the SAR's external affairs.
This case concerns the members of a foreign parliament who, it can logically be argued, wished to come to Hong Kong for the purpose of encouraging rebellious young people to continue their ongoing demonstrations that have disrupted not only the SAR's economy but the quality of life of Hong Kong people.
Asked to comment, a Hong Kong government spokesman said: "As clearly stated by the Foreign Ministry, the matter concerns our nation's foreign policy, and hence it falls within the prerogative of the government (in Beijing)."
Cameron should remember that at the G20 summit in St. Petersburg in September 2013 President Xi Jinping ended the diplomatic "freeze" between the two countries - caused by Cameron meeting the Dalai Lama a year earlier - by inviting him to visit China. Cameron responded by arriving two months later with the biggest British trade delegation ever to visit China. Cameron should also be aware that UK exports to China in the past five years have doubled in value to 15.9 billion pounds ($24.9 billion).
The author is a seasoned observer of Asian affairs.
(HK Edition 12/04/2014 page1)