Opening statement: The content of this article is written with authoritative sources combined with personal opinions, and the source and screenshot of the literature have been marked at the end of the article, please be aware.
Preamble:
At 0:00 on July 1, 1997, the March of the Volunteers sounded over Hong Kong, marking the official end of British colonial rule over Hong Kong over the past century.
What everyone knows is that for this moment, the Chinese have waited too long and too long; But what most people don't know is how much effort we did before we made it possible for Hong Kong to return to China in 1997.
Shortly after Britain's victory in the Falklands War in September 1982, Margaret Thatcher came to China in a hurry to try to discuss the Hong Kong issue with us.
Perhaps it was the Falklands victory that made her so confident that Margaret Thatcher mistakenly believed that China's refusal to consider Britain's continued sovereignty after 1997 was merely a negotiable condition.
At that time, the first person to meet Margaret Thatcher was Premier Zhao Ziyang, and before the meeting, he said through the media: Of course, China wants to take back its sovereignty, but the transfer of sovereignty will not affect Hong Kong's prosperity and stability.
In fact, it can be regarded as indirectly telling Mrs. Thatcher that the ownership of Hong Kong is non-negotiable, but unfortunately Mrs. Thatcher does not seem to realize this.
On the morning of September 24, Deng Gong, who is known as the "steel company", and Margaret Thatcher, the "Iron Lady", officially met, and the two had a two-and-a-half-hour meeting.
At that time, Tang told Margaret Thatcher that she hoped to negotiate a peaceful settlement of the Hong Kong issue, which would last for two years. Margaret Thatcher insisted that it was possible to negotiate, but not to set deadlines.
At the same time, she also pretended to be tough: Britain governs Hong Kong according to the treaties signed in the past, these treaties are valid, and if these treaties are to be changed, they must be replaced by other agreements, and cannot be unilaterally abolished.
The hidden implication in Mandarin is quite obvious, that is, if China wants to take back Hong Kong, it can only negotiate with the United Kingdom, and if we unilaterally tear up the treaties signed by the United Kingdom, we will bear the consequences.
Faced with the aggressive posture of the Iron Lady, Deng Gong just replied lightly: "The issue of sovereignty is not negotiable. In 1997, China wanted to take back Hong Kong, which was a prerequisite for negotiations! ”
Hearing this, the Iron Lady's face instantly turned ugly, and she held back her anger and talked to Deng Gong about how Britain had learned how to manage Hong Kong in the past 150 years, and the results were very good.
She went on to say that Britain would not talk about sovereignty until Hong Kong could prosper and stabilize, and that she believed that Hong Kong could only be prosperous and stable under British rule, and that without Britain, there would be no businessmen in Hong Kong willing to invest.
Hearing this, Deng Gong didn't say much, but just introduced to Margaret Thatcher our idea of "one country, two systems" to solve the Hong Kong issue, and finally set a negotiation deadline for the British side: two years!
If the two sides fail to reach an agreement within two years, then China will unilaterally announce our decision!
After the conversation, the two sides broke up unhappily, and when Margaret Thatcher walked out of the venue, she accidentally fell to the ground due to a reporter's question, and almost kowtowed.
After this scene was recorded by the reporters present, it was jokingly called the Iron Lady, and there were times when she was soft.
After the meeting, the mainland said in a joint communique that the leaders of the two countries held in-depth talks on Hong Kong's future in a friendly atmosphere. The two sides agreed to maintain Hong Kong's stability and prosperity as a common goal, and will continue to hold negotiations through diplomatic channels during subsequent visits. ”
On the other hand, after returning to China, the Iron Lady made a big splash in the media about the hardships of the negotiations, saying: "If one of the signatories to the [existing] treaty or agreement says, 'I don't agree, I intend to break it,' then it's hard to believe that they will respect the new treaty." ”
As soon as Thatcher said this, the diplomatic experts on the British side all sighed in their hearts and realized that it was over! They knew that these words would completely destroy all the goodwill that Britain had unleashed to the mainland, and at the same time it would bring unprecedented shocks to Hong Kong.
Sure enough, shortly after Thatcher's words, the mainland went directly into a rage, and Hong Kong's stock market fell 25% as a result.
After that, the Sino-British negotiations were postponed and restarted in 1984, when the two sides held as many as 22 rounds of negotiations, in which sovereignty and governance, a 13-year transition period, and the establishment of a Sino-British joint body became the focus of the negotiations.
In December of the same year, China and Britain signed the Sino-British Joint Declaration, which formally determined the specific time for Hong Kong's return to the motherland.
Until this point, however, the British were trying to set a trap for us.
On the eve of Hong Kong's return to the motherland in June 1997, mainland personnel in charge of Hong Kong's security suddenly discovered that according to the previous arrangement, the British garrison had to withdraw from Hong Kong at 0:00 a.m. on 1 July 1997, while the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) had to enter Hong Kong at the same time.
But if we wait for the British army to retreat and then enter Hong Kong, there will be a vacuum period of about 2 hours, which means that Hong Kong will be undefended during these 2 hours, and if any outlaws want to destroy it, it will be easy.
We immediately reported the matter to the Central Committee, which handed over the matter to Chen Zuo'er, the Chinese representative of the Sino-British Liaison Group, and asked him to negotiate with the British side to try to send the PLA vanguard to Hong Kong ahead of schedule.
At that time, our request was reasonable in any case, but the British side expressed strong opposition, believing that such a move would seriously damage the authority and face of the British side.
After that, the negotiations finally lasted for five days, and finally Chen Zuoer and the British side reached an agreement that 509 PLA personnel could enter Hong Kong two hours earlier, which allowed the mainland to implement a seamless connection with Hong Kong.
In the blink of an eye, a few days before Hong Kong's return to the motherland, in a clean and spacious conference room, the representatives of China and Britain were in a stalemate.
And there is only one reason for their stalemate, that is, this is not the first meeting between the two sides, and there is only one purpose, to ensure that the Chinese flag can be raised on time at 0:00:00 on July 1.
Prior to this, the mainland said that it would let the Chinese flag be raised on time at 0:00:00 on July 1, and to meet this requirement means that the British side needs to lower the national flag in advance so that we can be ready.
However, the British side refused to agree to such a simple request, for the same reason as before, which was nothing more than that this move would seriously damage the authority and face of the British side.
After several rounds of negotiations, An Wenbin, a senior Chinese diplomat and the person in charge of preparing for the return of Hong Kong to the motherland, finally couldn't bear it anymore and said to the British official: "July 1 starts at 0:00:00. You, the British, have occupied our territory for more than 150 years, and now our country wants to take back the territory that belongs to us, and for a second, we will not budge! ”
After that, he led people out of the conference room, and a few days later the two sides negotiated again, and this time the British finally made a dyed cloth, that is, they could lower their flag at 11:59:59 on June 30.
In other words, the British side only gave us one second to prepare, and everyone knew in their hearts that one second was simply not enough, because it took two seconds for the baton of the military band conductor to be raised.
Seeing that the negotiations were about to fail again, the person in charge of the British side took An Wenbin to a room on the side and said: Britain can lower the flag in advance, but the Chinese side must ensure that it will be raised at 0:00:00 on the 1st, and it must not be advanced.
Hearing this, An Wenbin immediately agreed, but even so, the pressure left on the military band at that time was still not small.
In order to meet the requirements of raising the flag at 0:00:00, the soldiers who participated in the handover ceremony that day carried out hundreds of drills, from entering the entrance to going up the steps to raising the national flag, so that every action became "muscle memory".
On the evening of June 30, 1997, the "sunset ceremony" symbolizing the end of British colonial rule in Hong Kong was held at Tamar Square, not far from the headquarters of the British Army in Hong Kong.
During the ceremony, a heavy rain unexpectedly came, which caught both sides off guard, and the British newspaper called it a "tragic moment".
Until many years later, some British troops were still intoxicated with the glory of the former "empire on which the sun never sets". On more than one occasion they have clamored for the recapture of Hong Kong.
Faced with this situation, a British general at that time gaged all of them with just one sentence, that is: "Which of you is going to face the Chinese People's Liberation Army?" The scene was suddenly silent, and no one dared to answer.
It is the strength of the motherland that will enable us to take back Hong Kong, and the strength of the motherland will enable Hong Kong to develop even better.
The five-star red flag fluttering in the wind reminds us all the time that we are still on the road to the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.
Reference: The moment on the eve of Hong Kong's return to the motherland: the British flag was lowered for the last time, and the Hong Kong Governor left when the rain poured down_The Paper
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