RecessionalMaimon Schwarzschild

If you have a taste for political theatre – and if shameful surrenders have been on your mind of late –  here is a full video of the ceremony in Hong Kong handing the territory to the People’s Republic of China in 1997.  (There is some commentary in Chinese, but it doesn’t interrupt the proceedings, most of which are in English.)

Britain had owned Hong Kong itself in perpetuity, by treaty, although Britain held the adjacent “New Territories” on a 99 year lease, which expired in 1997.   Perhaps to the surprise of the Chinese government at the time, Britain volunteered to abandon Hong Kong when the lease expired.  There was no referendum on the subject in Hong Kong, of course, which would almost certainly have voted to stick with British rule.

The handover ceremony is painful to watch.  It was evidently held in a shopping mall, and the whole look of it is midway between a high school event and a corporate merger ceremony.  The British participants, including Prince Charles, look pofoundly embarrassed – as well they might – and verging on traumatised.  You very seldom see politicians, much less royalty, looking this unhappy in public.  Prince Charles’ speech is actually quite good, and surprisingly tough: “You, oh Chinese government, have solemnly promised to respect the agreements you have made about freedom and human rights in Hong Kong, and we – and the world – expect you to fulfil your agreements”.  But of course, as everyone knew, if China reneges there is nothing anyone could or would do about it, least of all Britain.

To be fair, Britain’s options in 1997 were limited, and the Chinese regime has more or less kept its bargain so far, although economic and political freedom is surely a lot more precarious in Hong Kong now than it was under British rule.

But it was not a proud moment for Britain, or for that matter for the Western world of which Britain was once a leader.  Perhaps the slick and cheap handover ceremony was appropriate in its way.    There was surely more grandeur, and a deeper sense both of melancholy and of hope, when the Union Jack came down and the flag of India went up (to the strains of Rabindranath Tagore’s  hauntingly beautiful anthem) at the famous ceremony in New Delhi in 1947, when Nehru spoke of Indian independence as a “tryst with destiny”.  It wasn’t in a shopping mall that time.