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Margaret
Thatcher, who died earlier this week, may not have been one “for
turning”, as she dubbed her putative inability to not ever alter basic
principled direction. But when the first woman ever to become British
prime minister first met the maximum leader of China — Deng Xiaoping in
1982, over the Hong Kong sovereignty issue — she wasn’t keen on losing,
either.
That’s
because the diminutive, chain-smoking, astute successor to Mao Zedong
wasn’t “for turning”, either. Just as the Iron Lady had not been intimidated
out of the Falklands, Deng wasn’t “for turning” on the issue of China’s
takeover of Hong Kong.
The return of
the territory to Mother China was going to happen whether the Iron Lady
and the British people liked it or not — and in the manner that Beijing,
not London. wished.
“He was obdurate. […] He was not to be
persuaded,” recalled Thatcher of the exchange with Deng in September
1982. “At one point he said
that the Chinese could walk in and take Hong Kong later today if they
wanted to.”
In 1993 over
lunch, when her memoirs were published, I was to press her on this point,
playing dumb and saying something like: But Baroness Thatcher, you were
steadfast on Argentina, so principled.
Therefore, if
the Chinese army poured across the border in 1982, you would have sent
the British navy sailing to uphold British sovereign honor, right?
Thatcher
peered at me over her copy of “The Downing Street Years” on the luncheon
dining table and almost scoffed at my silly joust: “My Dear Sir,” I can
recall her memorably responding, “when the prime minister of Great
Britain orders her armed forces into war, it needs to be a war she can
win, not one she will lose. The Chinese would have creamed us!”
Principle,
you see, works best when it is plausible.
Thatcher knew
Britain’s hold over the Hong Kong territories acquired so dishonorably in
the prior century was, as it were, history. China’s time on the world
stage had come. Even the coldest of the Cold Warriors of the West could
see that.
Indeed, in
the 1993 memoirs Thatcher notes that she had very few cards to play and
so responded to Deng’s threat of invasion in the only way she could: “I
retorted that they could indeed do so. I could not stop them.
But this
would bring about Hong Kong’s collapse. The world would then see what
followed a change from British to Chinese rule. Deng, whom the prime
minister described as a highly intelligent realist, then looked off as if
accepting that a fair point had been made.
“For the
first time he seemed taken aback,“ her memoirs revealed. “His mood became
more accommodating.”
In fact, as
history played the Hong Kong handover game out, Britain and Beijing both
had to become more accommodating of each other. China got its Hong Kong
back but England did not have to give up its dignity.
For its
part, London had to learn quickly that the new leaders of China were no
dogmatic dolts. And they did learn — but they needed special guidance.
“I received further advice from someone
whose experience in dealing with the Chinese I knew to be unequalled…. I
discussed our problems … with Lee Kuan Yew, the Prime Minister of
Singapore.”
As it
happened, Thatcher got some good, levelheaded input: “It was crucial, he said, that we should adopt the right attitude
— neither defiant nor submissive, but calm and friendly. We should say
clearly that the fact was that if China did not wish Hong Kong to
survive, nothing would allow it to do so […] I now had to accept
that China’s concern for its international good name would allow us only
so much latitude. Mr. Lee’s advice therefore confirmed me in the
course upon which I had decided.”
And so it was
that on July 1, 1997 Hong Kong was formally and unequivocally returned to
the sovereignty of Beijing.
For all the
possibly sincere tears of Prince Charles and the tactical shenanigans of
the last British governor Christopher Patten, history’s march took its
planned course. It was then, in my view, that the “Asian Century” was
born — if technically three years prematurely.
What lesson
do we take away from this dramatic story? Certainly in hindsight we can
see that the instruction on how to handle China from the then Singapore
prime minister — Be calm and friendly, not defiant or submissive — was
very good advice then and remains very good advice for dealing with China
now.
The West
needs to bear in mind that the end of history did not occur with the fall
of the Berlin Wall. The rise of China and Asia shows history still
churning and turning. And the Hong Kong Handover of 1997 was one of the
20th century’s pivotal turns.
What an irony
for the Iron Lady herself to have been present at that! Yet, so darn
proud when the Soviet Empire fell, the lady had to fold her hand in the
face of China’s rise. But at least give the lady credit. She was a
realist. And so should we who survive her in the West be today about
China and its continuing rise. ●
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