Hong Kong, one of the most modern cities in the world, is one of its greatest anachronisms. It is the last corner of Asia where Europeans rule, a rock-pool left, brilliant, vital and teeming, by the historic ebb tide which saw the age of European dominance over Asia ending in this century's second half. The Germans, the Spanish, the Dutch, the French, the Portuguese, and the British, whose domains in Asia were once greatest of them all, withdrew or were forcefully evicted. But Britain preserved its power undiminished over the tiny but populous patch of China named Hong Kong, and thus the reversion of Hong Kong to China in 1997 will close an epilogue to the age of Europe's Asian dominance. Through the first half of the century Britain lived with the thought of the 1997 expiry of the lease which legitimises its rule over Hong Kong as a healthy young person accommodates the idea of mortality. After coming to accept that the return of Hong Kong to China was ineluctable, Britain succeeded in negotiating with Beijing what promised to be a co-operative and cordial transfer of power. How that agreement was achieved and how the achievement came to be undone is the subject of this paper.
The Economic and Political Weekly, published from Mumbai, is an Indian institution which enjoys a global reputation for excellence in independent scholarship and critical inquiry. First published in 1949 as the Economic Weekly and since 1966 as the Economic and Political Weekly, EPW, as the journal is popularly known, occupies a special place in the intellectual history of independent India. For more than five decades EPW has remained a unique forum that week after week has brought together academics, researchers, policy makers, independent thinkers, members of non-governmental organisations and political activists for debates straddling economics, politics, sociology, culture, the environment and numerous other disciplines.
First published in 1949 as the Economic Weekly and since 1966 as the Economic and Political Weekly, EPW, as the journal is popularly known, occupies a special place in the intellectual history of independent India. For more than five decades EPW has remained a unique forum that week after week has brought together academics, researchers, policy makers, independent thinkers, members of non-governmental organisations and political activists for debates straddling economics, politics, sociology, culture, the environment and numerous other disciplines.
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