Hong Kong: British Option: Foreclosed

Deeply traumatized by China’s bloody crackdown on students in Tiananmen Square, Hong Kong has been looking back to London for reassurance that the same thing won’t happen there when Beijing assumes control of the crown colony in 1997. At the least, Hong Kong’s 5.7 million Chinese want the option of moving to Britain. Last week British Foreign Secretary Sir Geoffrey Howe was dispatched to the colony to allay fears, but his visit only managed to make a bad situation worse.

Howe brought a blunt and unwelcome message: “There is simply no way a British government could grant to several million people the right to come and live in Britain.” Instead, while planning to admit perhaps 100,000 Hong Kong Chinese, London offered to enlist the U.S., Canada and Australia in a last- resort “lifeboat” plan to absorb others in the event of a mass exodus. In the meantime, Britain would hasten the implementation of self-rule and press Beijing for fresh assurances that Chinese troops would stay out of Hong Kong. The colony’s Chinese were not appeased. Storming out of the hall where the Foreign Secretary delivered his speech, eight prominent local officials shouted, “Shame, shame!”