TIANANMEN Square – a square in the center of Beijing. It is an enormous public open space. I write this on Sunday 4 June.
This is the 34th anniversary in which an estimated, by the Chinese Red Cross, 2,600 protestors were killed in the middle of the night (many were sleeping) by Chinese soldiers.
The enormity of this event means that its memory has not begun to fade. It will be of interest to see how it will be commemorated this year, particularly in Hong Kong. This is partly because 1989 when the disaster took place was only four years after the Joint Agreement between the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (UK) was signed. The two leaders, Margaret Thatcher of the UK and Deng Xiaoping of China had negotiated intensively before the Agreement was reached.
In 1898, the UK and China had agreed that the UK could occupy what is now much of Kowloon (part of Hong Kong but excluding Hong Kong Island) and the New Territories (an area which, hitherto, was part of China) for a period of 99 years. The arithmetic tells us that this agreement would expire in 1997. By the 1980s, the end of this agreement was in sight.
The negotiations were detailed. An important area of discussion revolved around what would happen after 1997. After all, Hong Kong in the 1980s was a free-wheeling capitalist society with entrepreneurs being encouraged to undertake wide-ranging business activities whereas the PRC was not. Hongkongers were worried that their businesses would become subject to irksome controls after 1997. The negotiations addressed this issue and eventually Deng and Thatcher agreed that after 1997, there would be a period of 50 years (until 2047) in which the existing form of Hong Kong governance would prevail.
Both leaders called this “One Country, two Systems.”
Would it survive for the specified 50 years (two generations)?
For some time it did, but in recent years Hongkongers experienced adverse reactions to what was seen by them to be unacceptable constraints on their freedoms.
Protests in Hong Kong allegedly involving over two million people took place. Finally, the patience of Beijing wore thin and subsequently protests in Hong Kong were qushed.
There are simmering resentments amongst Hong Kong people and Tiananmen Square anniversary will be a testing time.
We hope that the day passed without violence.
***
Last Friday, June 2, marked the 70th anniversary of the Coronation of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. I thought that bastions of Britishness, such as the BBC, would have recognized this. BBC World, however, did not.
I am disappointed.
For me, 2 June 1953 was a day I shall never forget. Literally millions of people lined the streets of London to watch the long procession travelling from Buckingham Palace to Westminster Abbey for the coronation.
I was amongst them. In my class at school there was a ‘lucky draw’. The winner was given a ticket to watch the procession. I was the lucky one.
Everyone cheered.
The biggest cheer, however, was given to the London County Council employees who cleaned the copious quantities of excrement deposited by the horses in the procession.
A day to remember!/PN
