Thatcher was a lot of things but naive certainly wasn't one of them. The Western powers simply wanted to become closer to China for economic and geopolitical reasons, but need an excuse to back away from the Red Scare. "Bringing Democracy" is the oldest page of the manufacturing consent playbook. It's honestly embarrassing of how well it works (e.g. Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya).
I would regard it more as a “pull out” than anything. Set up HK the best you can than wash your hands of it.
Looking back, I think it worked quite well for as long as it did.
Also not known to most is that Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia and the US all have larger Chinese populations than Singapore.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hong_Kong%E2%80%93United_Sta...
and in particular
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States-Hong_Kong_Poli...
(though this seems a little focused on export controls)
but I'd love to have been a fly on the wall in whatever meetings American diplomats had with one another and with the various other parties (Hong Kong, China, and Britain).
It sounds like the US was pretty hands-off at the time, though. Maybe that's just the official position, but it's surprising. I suppose 90s optimism could have caused this behavior...
Now I imagine what would have happened instead, say, under an Eisenhower administration, with John Foster Dulles as secretary of state.... It's hard to say: They were much more aggressive (e.g. Iran, Korea, ...), but they were also trying to get the British out of places (the Suez Crisis, the subtext of The Quiet American, ...). At this point it all just becomes alternate history though...
Practically, Britain should just offer citizenship to Hong Kongers...
I wish there were freedom of movement within AUKUS + ASEAN (+ OAS?), as a block, like there is within the EU... Instead it's almost like the neo-empire has hukous. Which sucks. Just come out as an empire and let subjects get some benefits, like the freedom to live anywhere... Or, I don't know, maybe that would just result in Americanization of the world, which would be kind of tragic... Hmm... Well anyway, at least invite Hong Kongers in; it's the least you can do...
Hm, actually CUKCs used to be a thing (unfortunate acronym now in 2022):
https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/the-staggers/2017/05/f...
(Sounds like the Commonwealth Immigrants Act 1962 should be repealed.)
Maybe this can all just be done in a bilateral way instead... Problem is, western countries have no incentive to bargain for looser visa regulations that let their people leave...
Still, it's nice to imagine a world where a person from Hong Kong or London or New York could freely move to any of the other cities...
Hm, maybe the collapse of national legitimacy and the rise of sanctuary cities (somewhat overhyped) paired with something more prosaic like sister cities could do this... Why can't a mayor have a foreign policy? Eric Adams or Sadiq Khan: "Hong Kongers are welcome here!" Hm...
How would such a league of city-states defend itself though? I mean, this is the problem in Hong Kong to begin with...
Hm...
Maybe we just need Mr. Lee's franchises... Make it real, people... If Mark Zuckerberg can get 15,000 engineers to try to build the Metaverse, surely we can raise an army to construct good things from cyberpunk...
Well, if the UK wanted to, they would have done it before 1997 but they chose to give the majority a chance to apply for a BNO passport which was literally a slap in the face. No right to live and work in the UK when you are a 'British National Overseas'.
Even when they let BNO passport holders apply for the right to live and work in the UK recently, they could pick and choose who they wanted to let in.
BNO passport = joke of the century
See here: Saudi-Arabia, Oman, UAE, Philippines, Egypt (military junta), Turkey, etc.
If being friendly with an authoritarian state yields economic or military geographical advantage then that overrides any ideological hang-ups involved.
They attack democracies that they don’t like labeling them autocratic and dictatorships. Then install their military juntas. See numerous examples like Chile, Ethiopia, Iran etc.
Stephen Kinzer has written extensively on this in the book Overthrow:
https://www.amazon.com/Overthrow-Americas-Century-Regime-Cha...
On overthrowing the Iranian democracy and installing the Shah:
https://www.amazon.com/All-Shahs-Men-American-Middle/dp/B00S...?
On the Jakarta Method:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Jakarta_Method
https://www.amazon.com/Jakarta-Method-Washingtons-Anticommun...?
In your view how is it different from today's situation where China might declare the same thing about Taiwan?
UK has no legitimate claim to Hong Kong, so the non-China option is independence.
Taiwan has always had a local military.
* by 1997 (handover date) Britain lacked a colonial empire from which it could assist in a defense of Hong Kong, and of the overseas posts it did have, the regiments were fairly small. Sending a large military force all the way from Britain itself would take too long in any sort of conflict. Taiwan has always come with the implicit security guarantee of the United States, which maintains a very active presence in the Pacific.
* the PLA has the law of numbers on their side, not only due to part 1 but because of how large their army is in general, and the border between Hong Kong and the rest of China is a fairly small river. The PLA generally lacks the amphibious capacity to do a land invasion of Taiwan.
* the New Territories in Hong Kong, unlike the rest of it, were signed over in a 99 year lease. 1997 was the end of those 99 years. The New Territories are a mountainous area with a good deal of Hong Kong's postwar population and also its major water supplies; without it and bordering a hostile China, Hong Kong would quickly cease to be a functioning city. Holding onto the territories wouldn't last a very long time due to parts 1 and 2, and unlike Taiwan where international law depends on who you think China is, the UK would clearly be in the wrong by violating the 99 year lease unilaterally.
The alternative is war.
>today's situation where China might declare the same thing about Taiwan?
And everyone pretty much agrees the alternative is war.
Calling for war in times of peace from your couch is a very easy thing do; but it's not something to be taken lightly. There's no telling how quickly this appetite for war against our 3rd largest trading partner will dry up once we start having to deal with the economic fallout.
A big part of it is that the "democrats" (which was a catch-all term for all Western-minded liberals) favored a quick reset of the vestigial planned economy into a free market-based one; words like "shock therapy" were thrown around. The idea was that any inconveniences would be temporary, and more than made up for when the transition is complete.
The immediate result, however, was a significant drop in quality of life for the majority of the population, with a corresponding rise in crime. And because the "democrats" were the ones spearheading the efforts, they carried the reputational hit. This gave people like Putin the opportunity to ride to power on "strong hand" policies that were supposed to fix all that.
I grew up in Russia during that era, and remember the rhetoric then. One thing I'd say the West did very wrong was to let organizations like the IMF run wild, pushing for their (austerity-centric) ideological view of the economy through loans. Then again, from what I've read later, it wouldn't be the first or the last time they messed up a country they were supposed to help.
(Side note: Zelensky's "Servant of the People" is available on Netflix with decent subtitles, and I would heartily recommend it to anyone in the West who wants to understand the historical trajectory of former Soviet republics - Russia and Belarus especially, of course. What I found interesting is that, while it was targeted at contemporary Ukrainians in 2015-2019, the world that it depicts was very familiar to me from my memories of 1990s in Russia, aside from uniquely local issues like the languages.)
The difference is that one of Russian oligarchs decided to make a new political puppet with a "strong man" image. He was very successful, but then the puppet decided that it can make it on its own - and did so.
Like all simple economic theories, it looked good on paper, and convincing to the crowd. Then it turned out that the new owners were largely the same people who were in charge in Soviet days, except for a few talented and lucky grifters who made their way from the very bottom to the very top.
The exact same kind of thinking the led US to invade Irak.
We're bringing democracy!
They will love us over there!
What could possibly go wrong!
With exactly zero understanding of the history and culture of the place.
I mean had Bremer ever crossed a US border once in his life before he was posted there?
That level of blindness and self-righteousness, while rather commonly on display in the US, is unfortunately not an american monopoly.
> The exact same kind of thinking the led US to invade Irak.
Encouraging (maybe there's a better word to use) a different way of running a foreign economy to bring about political change is not the exact same kind of thinking as overthrowing a foreign government to bring about political change. Yeah, there is the belief that political change needs to happen, but in practice these things are very different.
Those arguments always sound like straw men though: they are designed because they are easy to tear down. China is...weird. You can't really take anything at face value, good or bad. And I say that having lived there for 9 years. E.g. sometimes a ghost mall or district is one waiting to be populated, otherwise times it's just waiting to be torn down (either way positive GDP is generated).
And then all of a sudden it collapsed.
The US is getting more fascist in observable ways. Suspension habeas corpus in GWs time, pepper spraying college students in 2008 for a seated protest in Cali, to no abortion rights, and the political snowflakes in both parties calling for each other’s heads, kids in cages and yet everyone tucks their chin and goes on, inequality and taxation without holistic demographic representation; SCOTUS Justices openly demanding the public just accept things it does not like.
Keep complaining about Russia and China, USians. Virtue signaling while actually operating as moral relativists is creating the culture you talk to be against in your own backyard.
Consider that the UK only barely managed to defend the Falklands. Thatcher saved her and her country's face in the negotiations which is the main job of any politician.
Are you serious? I am not, I am being sarcastic.
One out of two ain't so bad. /s