Word: hong
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...visit, Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher left her final meeting in Peking with China's senior leader, Deng Xiaoping, only to stumble face first on the broad stairs. The unintended symbolism of the spill in full view of television cameras was not missed. On her arrival in Hong Kong Sunday, on the last leg of a two-week Asian tour, the Prime Minister faced a barrage of local criticism that she had got off on the wrong foot in the opening round of Sino-British talks over the future of the crown colony...
That future, in the eyes of Hong Kong's 5.5 million nervous residents, has never seemed more in need of clarification. From the luxurious mountaintop mansions of "the peak" to the factory floors of Kowloon, from the shimmering office towers of the business district to the wretched squatter camps near Aberdeen, the consuming topic of conversation nowadays is what exactly will happen to Hong Kong before July 1, 1997. That is the date when more than 90% of Hong Kong's land area, the 373-sq.-mi. New Territories, will revert to China under the terms...
...Hong Kong, where the most authoritarian portrait on public display shows the eyes of an anonymous Asian woman commanding citizens not to litter, the rising if still distant threat of reunification has hit like a typhoon. After Thatcher's visit, share prices on Hong Kong's stock market crashed 21% last week, while the Hong Kong dollar dropped by 4½%to U.S. $0.16, a new low. To deepen the gloom, Hong Kong's Financial Secretary, John Bremridge, announced last week that the colony's economy has been faring far worse this year than expected. Real...
...most the two sides could come up with was a joint pledge to continue negotiations aimed at maintaining "the stability and prosperity of Hong Kong." That was not especially reassuring for the residents, who, perhaps unrealistically, had expected Peking's guarantee that it would preserve the colony's aggressively capitalist character. To compensate, Thatcher went out of her way last week to assure wary residents that Britain was aware of its "moral obligation to the people of Hong Kong. Our differences can be reconciled," she insisted. "We can reach a solution acceptable to China, the people of Hong...
...week, Xinhua, China's official news agency, declared that "unequal treaties forced upon the Chinese people provide an iron clad proof of British imperialism's plunder of Chinese territory. It is a sacred mission," the report added, "of the Chinese government and people to claim sovereignty over Hong Kong." But however mild, such control would mean an end to Hong Kong's special nature. "The Chinese have to admit," noted London's Financial Times, "that, in effect, they can not run Hong Kong because if they did, it would not be Hong Kong." Added a Chinese...