The dying of Queen Elizabeth II has sparked a wave of nostalgia amongst some in Hong Kong for the territory’s pre-1997 “golden age” at a time when Beijing is clamping down on town’s freedoms.
Greater than 2,500 folks braved sweltering temperatures on Monday and queued for as much as three hours outdoors the British consulate within the territory to put flowers and pay tribute to the Queen, who was affectionately identified to older generations because the “boss woman”. On Tuesday morning, folks could possibly be seen queueing once more outdoors the consulate.
Whereas China’s president Xi Jinping despatched condolences to the UK’s new monarch, King Charles III, and praised the Queen as having received “huge acclaim”, many pro-Beijing politicians in Hong Kong and conglomerates based mostly within the Chinese language territory have been muted in paying their respects.
John Lee, town’s new chief government anointed by Beijing this yr, issued a quick assertion expressing “unhappiness” after Xi supplied his condolences. Professional-Beijing lawmaker and authorities adviser Regina Ip and HSBC chief government Noel Quinn additionally prolonged their condolences.
However British colonial-era buying and selling homes Swire and Jardine Matheson have remained silent within the days after the Queen’s death, as have many different companies and politicians within the territory. Her funeral is scheduled for Monday.
Beijing and the Hong Kong authorities have more and more denied Britain’s position within the improvement of the monetary hub, and have sought to minimize the colonial previous lately. New college textbooks have attempted to recast the city’s history by describing it as an “occupied territory” that was by no means a colony.
The drive follows anti-government protests in Hong Kong in 2019 that led Beijing to introduce a nationwide safety regulation and stamp out the territory’s once-vibrant media and civil society teams.
Beijing-backed newspaper Ta Kung Pao on Tuesday printed a commentary criticising “political propaganda” for selling nostalgia over the Queen’s dying, saying it solely mirrored a “very small minority” of the inhabitants.
But buildings, streets and put up packing containers that includes the Queen’s royal cipher and Hong Kong greenback cash bearing her likeness which are nonetheless in circulation are just a few traces of her sturdy presence within the metropolis, which was dominated by Britain for greater than 150 years till its handover to China in 1997.
The Queen was head of state in Hong Kong for 45 years, presiding over a interval of fast improvement that some regard as a golden age for town regardless that it was beneath international rule.
“I really like and respect the Queen very a lot,” mentioned 74-year-old Tung Lau, who queued outdoors the British consulate. “Again within the colonial days, we had at all times believed that we might have a greater future.”
Lau mentioned his daughter had joined a wave of emigration in response to Beijing’s makes an attempt to exert larger management, and had moved to Canada.
Many exiled pro-democracy activists, together with former scholar chief Nathan Legislation, paid tribute to the Queen.
Even a few of Hong Kong’s youthful era, born within the postcolonial period, had a way of nostalgia for what they noticed as a interval when metropolis’s circumstances have been “higher”.
“I shed tears after I first heard of the Queen’s dying,” mentioned Jack Chan, a 23-year-old postgraduate scholar. “These have been the higher days earlier than 1997. Issues have quickly diminished particularly over these previous few years.”
Many former pro-democracy protesters, a variety of whom waved the Union Jack and pleaded for Britain’s assist through the 2019 demonstrations, have both been jailed or have fled.
Banker Monie Fong believed the Queen’s dying reminded a lot of Hong Kong’s “golden period” between the Fifties and the handover, and recalled the disappearance of the values and freedoms it as soon as held.
“It’s the finish of an period,” the 57-year-old mentioned.
The Queen visited Hong Kong twice in 1975 and 1986. Many older folks dwelling at a Kowloon public housing property the place she stopped nonetheless had vivid reminiscences of the monarch.
An 86-year-old surnamed Chan recalled seeing the Queen in particular person as she handed by his vegetable stall on the public housing property’s market, describing her as “actually sleek”. The Queen additionally visited town’s racecourses, amongst different venues.
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