The death of Margaret Thatcher, British prime minister from 1979 to 1990, was greeted around the world with the much the same mix of praise and distaste bordering on hatred that marked her time in office.
Highly contentious and divisive domestic reforms that she initiated at home to revive a moribund economy, notably the sale of government-held assets, were subsequently mimicked in numerous countries. Yet the global financial crisis of 2008 brought a re-evaluation of financial and banking reforms that until then had been widely deemed as successful in encouraging economic growth and wealth creation.
Thatcher died peacefully on April 8 at the age of 87 after suffering
a stroke, her family announced. The longest-serving British prime minister of the 20th century, Thacher was and is the only woman to have held the office. She will be remembered in Asia largely for her role in handing Hong Kong back to China after more than a century of British rule.
The Financial Times headlined that ''Thatcher’s quest left a 'lasting scar’ on the economy'', even as changes she brought about helped ''shift Britain from relative decline''. Her policies destroyed much of the country's manufacturing industry in the north of England and drove up unemployment, while at the same time she destroyed the power of the unions. Increased openness to overseas investment also encouraged Japanese industry, notably automakers, to establish plants in rustbelt areas, the newspaper noted.
Her foreign policy was marked by strong relations with the United States under Ronald Reagan, a belligerent attitude to European states over funding of what is now the European Union, and a successful and daring war with Argentina after its invasion of the Falkland Islands (which some analysts say she encouraged by reducing for financial reasons already near-nominal support for the islands).
In Asia, she will be arguably known most for handing Hong Kong back to China. After two years of negotiations, China and Britain released the Sino-British Joint Declaration in 1984, paving the way for Hong Kong's handover in 1997.
The negotiations she started in 1982 with Deng Xiaoping and her Chinese counterpart, Zhao Ziyang, were marked by the impossibility of Britain holding on to Hong Kong Island, which it had been ceded ''in perpetuity'', while handing back the larger mainland area of the New Territories, for which it had secured possession under a treaty that was due to expire in 1997. The Chinese side saw little need to negotiate, while Thatcher recognized that failure to obtain a deal acceptable to the British public could bring about her political downfall.
Robert Cottrell, in a fascinating 1992 account of the negotiations, describes that on her first visit to China ''she found it a rather unpleasant place governed by rather unpleasant people.'' (See here.)
The official Chinese government press today acknowledged the impact of her dealings with China. "Her visit to China and her decision to promote bilateral ties on economy and trade demonstrated to the Western world the necessity to communicate with China during the Cold War period, and Sino-UK relations have been on good terms since then," the People's Daily recounted, quoting Tian Dewen, an expert on European studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences,
Thatcher realized the importance of a rising China, Tian said. "She called for dialogue instead of confrontation with China in resolving the Hong Kong question, showing her vision as an outstanding politician.''
Memories in Hong Kong were more ambivalent.
"I didn't think she [did] the best to protect Hongkongers' interests during Sino-British talks," Democratic Party chairwoman Emily Lau said. "One couldn't help getting angry. Britain had ruled Hong Kong for more than 100 years, but it did not give democracy to Hong Kong even when it was planning to hand it over to China," she told the South China Morning Post.
Selina Chow, a former lawmaker involved in the signing of the Sino-British Joint Declaration that came out of the negotiations, said Thatcher strove ''to find a balance for both Britain's and Hong Kong's interests,'' the English-language Standard reported.
Thatcher, whose health had been deteriorating for several years, had herself expressed in 2007 some regrets over the Hong Kong talks.
"What I wanted was a continuation of British administration. But when this proved impossible, I saw the opportunity to preserve most of what was unique to Hong Kong through applying Mr Deng's [one country, two systems] idea to our circumstances", the Telegraph, widely seen as a supporter of Thatcherite policies, reported in 2007, citing a radio interview that year.
Cheung Chi-kong, executive director of the One Country Two Systems Research Institute in Hong Kong, quoted today by China Daily, said she might have made a wrong judgment from day one - when she decided to negotiate with Beijing. ''She had underestimated China's persistence in sovereignty and national dignity.''
Beijing was determined to resume sovereignty over Hong Kong, Cheung said.
For Deng, the outcome was never in doubt, according to Cottrell's account. At their first meeting,
Deng was blunt. China, he said: ''… cannot but resume the exercise of sovereignty over the whole of the Hong Kong area in 1997. Upon such resumption, the Chinese government will take into full consideration the territory's special circumstances and adopt special policies in order to maintain the prosperity of Hong Kong.''
China, in other words, was determined to take back the whole of Hong Kong; and it felt no need of Britain's blessing to do so.
The rest is history.
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