The Hong Kong Handover Revisited – and its Effect on Gay Life (reposted with pics)

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fountainhall

The Hong Kong Handover Revisited – and its Effect on Gay Life (reposted with pics)

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A Personal Memoir

20 years ago tonight in lashing monsoon rains the British government handed Hong Kong back to China. Billed as a “spectacular sunset ceremony”, earlier in the evening drenched spectators at the Tamar site in Central, now the HQ of the People’s Liberation Army, witnessed a very British concert and encomium of Britain’s successes in Hong Kong. Others watched this bedraggled ceremony on television. A few in more privileged advantage points could just witness it through the rain from their windows overlooking the harbour. I was one, at a party given by friends in their large Mid-Levels apartment.

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Copyright: Romeo Gacad/AFP

At 8:00 pm there was one of Hong Kong’s justly famous fireworks displays. Like the event which preceded it, this was a large damp squib. Low clouds masked much of the display and failed to dissipate smoke from the fireworks. It seemed an ill-omen for Hong Kong’s future. Nevertheless I felt a state of some excitement for I was optimistic about that future. And I had been a resident of the then colony since the spectacle we were witnessing had first been the subject of a serious dialogue between the two countries.

The Opium Disgrace

156 years earlier Britain had wrested the barren island of Hong Kong, home to just a few Chinese fishing families, from the already crumbling Qing Empire. It was an action that was to sully the reputation of the British Empire for all time, an action described by present-day historian Professor Saul David as “capitalism and mercantilism at its worst,” for Britain’s objective in using gunboat diplomacy was exclusively to force the Chinese to accept opium in payment for its exports. In industrial revolution Britain, so great was the demand of the British traders for Chinese silks, porcelains, teas and other goods that it was in danger of running out of silver, the only payment the Chinese would accept. On the other hand, Britain had a surplus of opium which it was growing in abundance in north India. Lobbied by its already greedy traders the British government agreed to enforce a trade that would create millions of Chinese opium addicts, thereby condemning up to 90% of the southern coastal communities to a miserable death.

Opium Clippers at Calcutta en route to Image

Whilst China was forced to cede first Hong Kong and later the Kowloon peninsula to Britain in perpetuity, Britain eventually wanted more. In 1898 a Convention was signed in Beijing providing a lease to Britain for the New Territories, the much larger tract of agricultural land to the north of Kowloon. The lease was for 99 years. It was to become the reason for much gnashing of teeth in Whitehall in the 1980s and 90s.

1997 Looms of the Horizon

Neither country seemed to pay much attention to the end date for that lease. By the mid 1970s Hong Kong had become a major economic powerhouse whilst China was just emerging from the latest and most dreadful of Mao’s campaigns – the virtual destruction of the country, its history and society in the Cultural Revolution. The Brits living in Hong Kong could in theory depart Hong Kong at any time. For the local Chinese, it was their home. As the many Chinese who had emigrated to Hong Kong after the Communist takeover of the mainland with only the clothes on their backs themselves had become increasingly wealthy, some exceedingly so, it was they who started to express concern. Would the Chinese take over their homeland in 1997 and once again strip them of their wealth? Investors, too, were concerned. They could only consider ploughing masses of dollars into major capital investments if there was sufficient time to make good profits.

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So it was that a month after I arrived to live in Hong Kong, the very popular Governor Sir Murray Maclehose made a trip to Beijing to meet with Deng Xiao-ping, now restored for the second time as the country’s Supreme Leader. Maclehose returned with a message from Deng, “Tell investors to put their hearts at ease.” It was enough. Hong Kong entered another boom phase.

But not for long! In 1982 British PM Margaret Thatcher arrived in Beijing for face-to-face negotiations with Deng that had started months earlier. Fresh from her triumph after winning the Falklands War but against the advice of her foreign office mandarins, her negotiating position was that Britain continue administration of Hong Kong after 1997. She was no match for wily old Deng. China could not possibly accept this and she was told so firmly. Deng soon came up with his proposal for “one country, two systems”. Thatcher scribbled a note to one of her colleagues, “This paper is pathetic – it is a recipe for a sell-out.” As negotiations wore on, it was pointed out to Thatcher that the New Territories supplied much of Hong Kong’s food and China almost all its water. If it wished, all China needed to do was turn off the tap. To this, Thatcher seriously suggested mooring huge water tankers in Hong Kong harbour!

After nearly three long, fractious years, Deng won the day. Margaret Thatcher was left without any cards in her hand. A Joint Declaration was signed as a result of which Hong Kong would revert to Chinese rule with its then economic, education, legal and other freedoms, including the right to form political parties, in place for 50 years. China would be responsible only for defence.

Hong Kong Old and New
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Gay Hong Kong at that Time

One issue certainly not discussed was homosexuality. Hong Kong still had on its statute books the notorious Victorian Law making sodomy illegal. Although it had been repealed in the UK in the mid-1960s, it remained in place in almost all Britain’s former colonies, as it still is today in countries like Singapore and Malaysia. Although Hong Kong had a thriving gay subculture, each year several gay men would be jailed for up to two years – as a means to decourager les autres. The subject might well have remained in the background but for an extraordinary event that occurred not long before the 1997 negotiations started, one that is worthy of a John Le Carre crime novel.

Homosexual Witch Hunts – and a Suicide Most Foul?

The Royal Hong Kong Police maintained a Special Investigations Unit whose task was to root out homosexuals in prominent positions. As soon as it was set up, several people including one senior judge had left the colony in some haste. It was known that there existed a large gay underground and the government was determined to stamp it out. It is a long story and the detail is not important here. The key point is that a member of that force was allegedly about to identify to his superiors a number of senior figures, including almost certainly his boss, the unmarried Chief of Police.

In April 1980 this same 29-year old Inspector John MacLennan was found dead in his bedroom. He had been shot with five bullets from his own Colt .38 revolver. The door and windows were all locked - from the inside. For some reason, MacLennan had decided not to take the easy way to death by putting the gun to his head. He had tried to put a bullet through his heart. Think about that! It’s cannot be at all easy. Having wounded but not killed himself, in his weakened state he tried again – and again – and again – and again - before the deed was complete! Five attempts! It was all but unbelievable.

Bank of China Building
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Public Opinion and a Change in the Law

Equally unbelievable, when his body was found, no forensic tests were done, the body was quickly cremated and the inquest was delayed by many weeks. When the coroner’s court finally delivered its verdict, the Hong Kong government was furious. Rather than a definitive verdict of suicide, the jury did not buy the police case and delivered an “open” verdict. Fanned by Hong Kong’s media and a few courageous campaigners, public opinion began to swing in favour of MacLennan having been murdered. A formal government enquiry was established under the Chief Justice. Its credibility was shot through when it came to the same suicide conclusion. It took a few more years by which time the public outcry had become impossible to dampen. This totally gave the lie to the government’s oft-claimed position that the Chinese community would never accept decriminalisation of homosexuality! A Special Committee of the Law Reform Commission was established. Over time it interviewed many witnesses, including a large number of gay prostitutes.

Not surprisingly, the Commission in its long report noted –
We have no doubt from all that we have learned that the practise of active homosexuality is comparatively widespread in Hong Kong, and that it occurs in all social classes and amongst members of all the races in Hong Kong. (Article 5.9)
The recommendation was that homosexuality should no longer be criminalised. It took another few years for the law to be changed, but freedom for gay men was finally achieved in 1991.

Gay Venues Start to Multiply

Before 1991 Hong Kong had a couple of gay bars, one gay disco and a couple of saunas where gays would congregate but with no action. As soon as the law changed, entrepreneurs moved in. Within months H2O a small gay sauna had opened in a block of flats in Causeway Bay. Propaganda, a much larger and very popular gay bar and disco, opened its doors, only finally to close after two reincarnations last year. Now there are gay bars and saunas in various locations in Hong Kong, including the hugely popular Hutong in Kowloon, although its clientele is mostly – though not exclusively so, especially if you are youngish and in good shape – sticky-Chinese. Many discos have their own gay sections.

Zoo Bar
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Hutong Sauna
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Britain’s Mistake

Hong Kong has been much in the news in recent years with the new movement for democracy spearheaded by a group of courageous students. One problem arises from the Joint Declaration and Hong Kong’s Constitution, the Basic Law. China and Britain had failed to agree on certain issues. As is now known from recently released British government papers, these were therefore partly fudged and ambiguous wording included.

In my view, in 1992 Britain then made one of its biggest mistakes. In the UK, John Major’s Conservative Party had scraped through in a General Election all had expected it to lose. The popular Chairman of the party, Christopher Patten, had lost his seat and was at a loss as to what his future would be. Indebted to Patten, Major asked him what job he would like – expecting him to request to be elevated to the House of Lords. Instead, Patten asked to become the Last Governor of Hong Kong. Major caved in and agreed, despite this post always having gone to highly seasoned diplomats who had spent some time in the Beijing Embassy, who knew the Chinese and the language. Patten’s resume had no such experience. He was a politician not a diplomat.

Hong Kong Central Park
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Fat Pang’s Sbterfuge

Patten was a popular Governor. Unlike his predecessors, he mixed freely with the Hong Kong population who fondly named him “Fat Pang”. It was a different story in Beijing. Unknown to Beijing (and almost certainly to his bosses in London) Patten was working furiously and secretly in Hong Kong to exploit every little loophole in the official Agreements. Without consulting Beijing or even giving the future government any idea of what he was about to do, he then unilaterally announced an extension of the very limited democratic franchise. Beijing was white hot with anger!

To the Chinese, the various Opium Wars and their consequences were a national disgrace, a loss of face felt by virtually the entire country. They never trusted the British. Aware that Hong Kong had huge financial reserves the government had a genuine fear that Britain would walk away in 1997 and haul that treasure chest worth tens of billions of US dollars with them. Now the Last Governor was acting as a lone wolf. Even his Prime Minster back in England was angry and there are reports, so far unverified, that he twice tried to recall Patten. Patten refused.

Thus, given the other provisions of the legal Agreements, Patten had let a particularly sensitive cat out of the bag. The Chinese, as was their right, then cancelled the proposed “through train” whereby the administration of Hong Kong would continue after 1997 – only without the Governor. A new government was put in place on 1 July 1997.

I believe the secretive way Patten went about his subversion less than the actions themselves, are one of the primary causes for the upsurge in the democratic movement. The democrats have wisely decided to withdraw for a few years and then resume. The thought prior to 1997 always was that by the end of the 50-year term China would be as economically advanced as Hong Kong and also be a lot more democratic than it was in the 19080s. The latter is not happening. What will eventually happen in Hong Kong, I have no idea. I don’t think anyone does. But if you are gay, at least you can be thankful that the dying colonial government repealed that old Victorian law and enjoy a gay nightlife that is almost as vibrant as any city in Asia – Thailand excluded!

Night View of One of the World’s Great Harbours
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