The end of empire

I remember reading somewhere that Jan Morris booked her accommodation for the 1997 handback of Hong Kong years in advance. That's a credible story, because she started her reportage career not long after WWII and she would have been writing for about 50 years by then, so it was also a personal milestone. I think some pundit computed that after the handback, if some obscure posession, perhaps it was Diego Garcia, were taken into account, it might just be possible to still claim that the sun did not set on the empire. But the bare reality was that Britain was returning her last populous overseas territory. The Empire would fade into history.


Back then a local newspaper wrote that China was inheriting a First World city and speculated on what effect that might have on China or vice versa. They wouldn't write a line like that now. China now has other First World cities, owing nothing to Hong Kong, but just the same frenetic energy that drives all Chinese wherever they are able to wheel and deal.


2047 is a long time away, at the accelerating pace of human history. Hong Kong will be very different, China will be very different, and indeed the world will be very different. So, useless to speculate now what China will do to Hong Kong or vice versa.


But I think in that distant age you will still hear the plaint in Hong Kong: Haang fai dit la, wei!