Declassified secret file shines a light on China’s true intentions
THE AUSTRALIANOCTOBER 11, 2014 12:00AM
A pro-democracy activist stands with a yellow umbrella as part of an art installation outside Hong Kong’s government complex.
A FADED meeting note bashed out on a faulty typewriter in 1958, which surfaced only recently, is making an intriguing contribution to the growing Hong Kong debate.
This debate about Hong Kong’s future, triggered by the continuing protests, has broadened out, within Asia, into one about the future of the region, especially, of course, China.
It has also delved back into the past, as the blame game intensifies over the apparent alienation of a generation of Hong Kongers.
Typical of a strong line of commentary is Guo Ping’s assertion in the People’s Daily that “in 150 years, England, which boasts of being an exemplar of democracy, didn’t give our Hong Kong compatriots even a single day of real democracy” — until, in the final few years before the 1997 handover, “the British government’s ‘secret desire’ was unleashed to hastily put HK down” that path.
Only now, the Chinese Communist Party’s mouthpiece said, is a general election for the chief executive on offer, raising the question: “Whose was real democracy and whose was fake democracy?”
One answer has been unearthed in recently declassified files of Britain’s Foreign and Colonial Office. A note there refers to a meeting in Beijing on January 30, 1958, between a British lieutenant colonel, Kenneth Cantlie, and China’s longstanding premier, Zhou Enlai.
The Cantlie family was heavily engaged with China.
James Cantlie, a Scottish doctor, who was knighted, co-founded the Hong Kong College of Medicine, which developed into the University of Hong Kong. One of his early students was Sun Yat-sen, seen as the founder of modern China, becoming the first president after triggering the end of the Qing dynasty.
When, in 1896, Cantlie returned to London because of ill health, Sun stayed with him at his house on Portland Place.
The Chinese imperial legation was also based in the area, and on his way to church one Sunday, Sun was lured to the legation and kidnapped. It was Cantlie who rescued him shortly before he was to have been smuggled out on a ship back to China.
His son Kenneth also became heavily involved in China, including as technical adviser to the Ministry of Railways, inventing a locomotive widely used there.
Colonel Cantlie was consequently held in high respect in China, including after the founding of the People’s Republic in 1949. Thus his meeting with Zhou — at a time when, although Britain formally recognised China diplomatically, contacts were otherwise few and distant.
The now declassified note in the British files says Zhou wished to put forward “an important point … personally to (Harold Macmillan, British prime minister), or his deputy.
“A plot or conspiracy was being hatched to make Hong Kong a self-governing dominion like Singapore.
“This had the approval of several members of the British and Hong Kong governments.
“(Zhou) wished Mr Macmillan to know that China would regard any move towards dominion status as a very unfriendly act.
“China wished the present colonial status of Hong Kong to continue with no change whatever.”
In a further declassified file, on October 29, 1960, Liao Chengzhi, the director of the Overseas Chinese Affairs Commission, told a delegation of Hong Kong union representatives visiting Beijing: “Should the (self-government) proposal come from the British … we shall not hesitate to take positive action to have Hong Kong (island), Kowloon and the New Territories liberated.”
The crucial white paper on Hong Kong’s governance issued on June 10 by China’s National People’s Congress standing committee makes oblique reference to Beijing having made its concerns felt on this issue in such ways during the colonial era.
The position of Singapore has evolved.
Having been, 60 years ago, a model for a shift towards democratic self-governance, its Prime Minister, Lee Hsien Loong, who visited Hong Kong shortly before the protests began, now says: “The geopolitical reality is that HK is now part of China,” which is prepared to “go very far” to help Hong Kong succeed.
As a postscript on the adventurous Cantlie family, John Cantlie, the grandson of the colonel who met Zhou, is a 43-year-old photojournalist.
He has been held by Islamic State in Syria since being abducted there two years ago.
http://m.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/declassified-secret-file-shines-a-light-on-chinas-true-intentions/story-e6frg6so-1227086830652
