Bulletin Spring‧Summer 2001

Hong Kong's Difficult Transition An Address by Dr. Lee Kuan Yew A l l ow me to thank you for according me the honour of this honorary degree. Thirty years ago, I received an honorary L L D from the University o f Hong Kong. The Chancellor o f H K U who presided over the occasion, was the then Governor, Sir David Trench. He was the archetype of the British Colonial Service Officer who had risen to the top of the colonial hierarchy, a big man, speaking with a strong British public school accent and exuding authority as the number one man in Hong Kong. It was still a very colonial Hong Ko n g in 1970 ， with the Hong Kong Chinese elite deferential and submissive. People referred to the governor i n reverential tones not as Sir David or Mr. Governor bu t as ‘ HE ’. Indeed all British officials were treated as superior beings. An d unlike Singapore there was no anti-colonial resentment at the superior airs of the British. Hong Kong people accepted their subordinate status and went about their lives quite happily, leaving the business of ruling them to the British. That starchy typically colonial society changed rapidly after 1984 as time began to run out on British rule. I n the last few years o f their rule, B r i t i s h p o l i c y and posture changed drastically. The y sent as governor, Chris Patten, a British politician, not a Colonial or Foreign Office man. He discarded the o l d colonial style and adopted the folksy manners of British politicians when out canvassing for votes at election time. He inculcated the belief that all that Hong Ko n g people needed to keep up the Hon g Ko n g economic miracle was democracy, freedom o f the press, and human rights. The fact that Britain had denied any democracy to their colonial subjects for over a century of British rule was overlooked. The British did not prepare the people of Hong Chinese University Bulletin Spring • Summer 2001 48