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Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the July 10, 1997
issue of Workers World newspaper
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With Brits out, it's Hong Kong, People's Republic of China

By Brian Becker

Joyous celebrations erupted throughout China at midnight June 30 as 155 years of British colonial domination over Hong Kong came to an end.

Ripped away from mainland China in the Opium War of 1839-1842 and then leased to Britain for 99 years in an imposed treaty in 1898, Hong Kong reverted to Chinese sovereignty in a peaceful transfer negotiated by the British and Chinese governments.

The agreement was made in 1984 between British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and Deng Xiaoping, leader of the People's Republic of China. Its essence stipulated that the British would pull out of Hong Kong and that for at least 50 years China would not interfere with the capitalist system that British and world imperialism have maintained in this deep-water harbor enclave on China's southern coast.

Under the slogan "one country, two systems," the PRC recovers sovereignty over the territory. But the big bourgeoisie in Hong Kong is guaranteed the "right" to maintain private property and vast fortunes.

The properties foreign capitalist corporations now own will also continue to belong to their current owners.

It is noteworthy that Mao Zedong and the other early leaders of the PRC did not favor forcibly seizing Hong Kong, even when that was clearly possible from a military viewpoint.

Peaceful transfer doesn't satisfy imperialists

The People's Republic of China was certainly strong enough to have seized Hong Kong by force of arms at any time since the 1949 revolution and integrated its territories and vast capital-minus their capitalist owners-into the socialist state. Given that, one might conclude that British and world imperialism would be thoroughly satisfied with the terms of the current settlement.

But the enemies of socialism are never satisfied.

The peaceful transfer of Hong Kong has generated a new campaign denouncing China for sending 4,000 troops and limited military equipment into its own territories. Crocodile tears are being shed for the loss of freedom and democracy in Hong Kong as China announces that the existing "freely elected" legislature will be replaced.

Never mind that in the first 153 years of colonial rule the British refused to allow any general election, and only devised this game in 1994 as they were about to leave. Never mind that London has always appointed a white British aristocrat to be governor of this 98-percent Chinese colony. Never mind that this governor had absolute power.

Members of the U.S. Congress have also solemnly declared scores of times in recent weeks that if China does not respect human rights in Hong Kong they will move to end trade between the PRC and the United States.

'We enriched ourselves to the tune of billions'

The campaign has taken on a special venom among some quarters in the United States and Britain. The influential magazine Far Eastern Economic Review, in a special June 1997 issue, quotes former Conservative member of the British Parliament Matthew Parris as saying the hand-over of Hong Kong "is a great betrayal because we will deliver 6 million people-a people from whose labors we have enriched ourselves to the tune of billions-into the hands of the world's greatest surviving tyranny."

Parris has nothing to say about the plight of Hong Kong's working class under British rule. These 6 million "free people" include 1 million low-paid workers living in dwellings that average more than seven persons per room.

The New York Times reported two years ago about Hong Kong's "cage people." They live in steel-mesh cages stacked two and three high. Each only big enough for a mattress.

These cages fill decaying slum buildings.

More than 10,000 people live like this. Another half-million are either homeless or live as squatters in shacks and makeshift dwellings on the outskirts of the sprawling urban landscape.

Myth and reality

What has driven Hong Kong to become one of the richest centers of capitalist trade, banking and commerce? The reality is that corporations have paid almost no taxes, provided almost nothing to social services like health care, and were protected in their profit-driven wheeling and dealing by the power of direct colonial rule.

The myth perpetuated by the Western capitalist media is that Hong Kong consists of millionaires driving Mercedes cars and coveting British culture. Trained by the British, they love democracy and have become accomplished world-class business executives who avoid all corruption and live by the so-called Rule of Law.

Thus, thousands of capitalist corporations have set up their Asian headquarters there and pumped billions into the enclave, secure that their investments are as protected as they would be in Britain.

The reality is that Hong Kong has served as a beachhead for the expansion of capitalist plunder throughout Asia. This plunder involved the grossest violations of human rights.

But when the apologists for Western capitalism admit this historical truth, it is only to turn it against China.

In a June 28 editorial the New York Times wrote with classic doublespeak:

"Along with the slave trade, the traffic in opium was the dirty underside of an evolving global trading economy [capitalism]. In America as in Europe, pretty much everything was deemed fair in pursuit of profits. ...

"We no longer believe that anything goes in the global marketplace, regardless of social consequences. It is precisely this conviction that underlies efforts to attach human rights conditions to trading relations-to temper the amorality of the market-a point that, alas, seems to elude the socialist soon-to-be masters of Hong Kong."

The chorus in the capitalist countries is threatening. Pointing their finger in China's face, they tell the leadership, "How China treats Hong Kong will be a model for whether Western capitalists decide to invest in China."

"We demand," cries the U.S. and British lobby, "that China uphold the Rule of Law as practiced by the British in Hong Kong."

'Rule of law' equals private property

What is the "Rule of Law"? The implication is that it means impartial justice, due process, upholding the rights of the accused, etc.

But anyone familiar with U.S. and British big business knows they don't give a damn about impartial justice and due process. The "Rule of Law" means only one thing in the lexicon of the capitalist investor: that private property is inviolate.

Writing in the May 7 New York Times, Edward A. Gargan explained the "Rule of Law" campaign: "For many foreign investors, concerned about even the short-term business environment [in Hong Kong], it is Beijing's cavalier attitude toward contractual agreements that has stirred worries about whether Hong Kong's legal system will survive China's imminent takeover. Last year, despite a long-term contract, a McDonald's restaurant was summarily ousted from its premises near the old imperial city in Beijing. In Hong Kong, by contrast, it is the sanctity of contracts, the predictability of conducting business under a rule of law, that has contributed so significantly to the territory's dynamic economy."

All self-serving language aside, Gargan gets to the essence of the issue. Will the Chinese state act as the enforcer of the sanctity of investors' contracts? Here is the nub of the contradiction.

The People's Republic of China is led by the Chinese Communist Party. This party, although it has encouraged capitalist investment and allowed a class of private property owners to grow, is still based on the core sectors of a workers' state. The army and courts in China are not the fundamental levers of maintaining the bourgeoisie in power or of the sanctity of their business contracts.

On the contrary, capitalist investment takes place in China only so long as it is tolerated by the workers' state. The imperialist bourgeoisie now threatens China- economically but also militarily-should the Chinese state reverse its stand on allowing private property to grow in Hong Kong.

The imperialists hope Hong Kong's return to the mainland will eventually help transform all of China into a vast neocolony so it can be plundered at will. The workers in China want Hong Kong to be transformed in the opposite direction-so its vast resources will serve the workers and peasants, not a handful of compradore billionaire families.

Ultimately, the combat between the two social systems-one based on capitalist competition and profit and the other on public ownership and economic planning-will erupt in a major struggle. Every class-conscious worker should enter this fray as a militant defender of the People's Republic of China and its awesome gains won through a vast popular revolution.

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Chinese troops welcomed

After all the media hype here on possible "panic" in Hong Kong, here's what really happened when Chinese troops arrived, according to a July 1 Associated Press report:

"The often exuberant welcome indicated that many in Hong Kong don't mind having the People's Liberation Army in their midst.

"At points along the convoys' routes, crowds of cheering, cymbal-clanging, drum-beating people turned out to greet the Chinese troops.

"In the seaside suburb of Stanley, once a British redoubt, about 300 people stood in heavy rain to await the Chinese convoy heading to Stanley Fort. ... When the 20 vehicles drove slowly by, people broke through police lines to shake hands with the soldiers and give them bouquets.

"`Very exciting,' declared 16-year-old Penguin Wong. ... 'We are so happy about Hong Kong's return to China.'

"... In the semi-rural New Territories, ... people turned out to cheer and beat drums as the troops crossed the border. Beaming Chinese officers got out of their cars and were garlanded with flowers."

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(Copyright Workers World Service: Permission to reprint granted if source is cited. For more information contact Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011; via e-mail: [email protected]. For subscription info send message to: [email protected]. Web: www.workers.org)

Copyright ?1997 workers.org

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