The year 1967 was a watershed of my Hong Kong experience. When I arrived two years earlier the colony was still, to a large extent, a transit camp for the thousands who had fled communism and were awaiting their chance to begin new lives overseas, in America, Australia, Canada or Britain. Local leftist sympathisers, emboldened by the Cultural Revolution wreaking havoc on the mainland, made the grave mistake of believing they could provoke a general uprising against colonial rule, instead of which they enraged the local community with their bombs and assassinations. The result was a general recognition among the public at large that Hong Kong was something of value. Encouraged by this sudden curiosity about the way Hong Kong was run and where it was headed, the colonial administration responded in kind, instituting closer ties with the populace through the City District Officer scheme. It was a sea change that might never have happened without the threat, held narrowly at bay, of Red Guards spilling across the border and running amuck through Hong Kong streets.
6 сен 2024