CHINA RESUMES CONTROL OF HONG KONG, CONCLUDING 156 YEARS OF BRITISH RULE (original) (raw)
World|CHINA RESUMES CONTROL OF HONG KONG, CONCLUDING 156 YEARS OF BRITISH RULE
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HONG KONG, CHINA: THE OVERVIEW
- July 1, 1997
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July 1, 1997
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Section A, Page
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In the first moments after midnight, in a ceremony of solemn precision and martial music, China resumed sovereignty over Hong Kong today, ending 156 years of British colonial rule.
Seconds after British soldiers lowered the Union Jack for the last time to the strains of ''God Save the Queen,'' China's red banner was raised, marking the transfer of this free-wheeling capitalist territory to Communist control.
It was an event awaited with trepidation as well as excitement since 1984, when Britain and China agreed on terms for the transfer of power over this territory wrested from China in the 19th century wars over the opium trade. And it ushered a time of uncertainty over whether China would honor its pledge to maintain Hong Kong's way of life largely unaltered for the next 50 years.
For many ordinary people in the streets of Hong Kong, this was a time of celebration, not necessarily over the departure of the British or the arrival of the new masters from Beijing, but for experience of witnessing a big moment in history. (PageA9.(Page A9.(PageA9.)
In the convention center where the handover of power took place, China's President, Jiang Zemin, using a Mandarin dialect as alien to Hong Kong's Cantonese-speaking people as the English of the British authorities, declared the event ''a festival for the Chinese nation and a victory for the universal cause of peace and justice.''
''The return of Hong Kong to the motherland after a century of vicissitudes indicates that from now on, our Hong Kong compatriots have become true masters of this Chinese land and that Hong Kong has now entered a new era of development,'' Mr. Jiang said.
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