Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
When these tactics failed, China targeted Hong Kong's economy. Talks on certain business
contracts and infrastructure projects straddling 1997 suddenly came to a halt, including the
new airport program.
Sensing that it had alienated even its supporters in Hong Kong, China backed down and
in 1994 gave its blessing to the new airport at Chek Lap Kok. It remained hostile to direct
elections, however, and vowed to disband the democratically elected legislature after 1997.
It eventually did what it said by installing an interim rubber-stamp body which would serve
until June 1998.
As for the executive branch of power, China organised an 'election' in December 1996 to
select Hong Kong's first postcolonial leader. But Tung Chee Hwa (1937-), the Shànghǎi-
born shipping magnate handpicked to be the SAR's first chief executive, won approval by
retaining Patten's right-hand woman, Anson Chan, as his chief secretary and Donald Tsang
as financial secretary.
On the night of 30 June 1997, the handover celebrations held in the purpose-built exten-
sion of the Hong Kong Convention & Exhibition Centre in Wan Chai were watched by mil-
lions of people around the world. Chris Patten shed a tear while Chinese President Jiang
Zemin beamed and Prince Charles was outwardly stoic (but privately scathing, describing
the Chinese leaders in a diary leaked years later to the British tabloids as 'appalling old
waxworks').
So the curtain fell on a century and a half of British rule, and the new Chief Executive
Tung summed up Chinese feelings about the handover with the words: 'Now we are masters
of our own house'.
