Government rewrites history of Hong Kong
The government has rewritten the history of Hong Kong, saying that it was never a colony because British rule was illegal and was never democratic and downplaying the events of 1989.
“The Hong Kong Story” exhibition opened on April 1 at the Hong Kong Museum of History. It replaced an exhibition with the same name open from August 2001 to October 2020.
The new exhibition has more than 2,800 artifacts and traces the city’s evolution from 6,000 years ago, its cultural roots to the mainland, the wartime years and its transformation into a modern global city.
In the old exhibition, the Qing government “ceded” Hong Kong and Kowloon and “leased” the New Territories to the British government. Article 3 of the Treaty of Nanjing, signed on August 29, 1842, said: “the island of Hong Kong to be possessed in perpetuity by Queen Victoria and her successors, and ruled as they “shall see fit.” Since then, historians have referred to Hong Kong as a colony.
In the new exhibition, “ceded” has been changed to “forcibly occupied”, “forcibly leased” and “ceded by force”.
This reflects Beijing’s view that it never recognised the three “unequal treaties”
signed between the Qing government and Britain. The occupation of Hong Kong, Kowloon and the New Territories was illegal. It was never a colony but, instead, a territory under unlawful occupation, and the 1997 handover resumption of sovereignty over stolen territory.
Two of the greatest achievements of the colonial government were the construction of public housing and government schools for tens of thousands of refugees who poured into the city in the 1950s.
The schools offered seven years of free education. These were described in detail in the old exhibition.
The new one calls them “only short-term relief measures”.
On the introduction of democracy, the old exhibition said that the representative system of the 1980s were “the buds of Hong Kong democratic elections and party politics.”
The new exhibition says that this was a method to prolong British influence over Hong Kong and that there was absolutely no democracy in the city’s political system.
There is also a redefinition of the violent leftist riots of 1967, inspired by the Cultural Revolution in China. The new exhibition describes them as “large-scale social unrest” and “anti-British protest and violence.”
The riots lasted from May to December 1967, involving roadside and petrol bombs. They left 51 people dead and 832 injured and led to nearly 5,000 arrests and 1,936 convictions. Fearful that their city would descend into the chaos of the Cultural Revolution, the large majority of Hong Kong people supported the government and police.
The old exhibition showed a photograph of the one million Hong Kong people marching on May 21, 1989 in support of student protestors in Beijing.
The new exhibition has no images of the march and describes the events of that year as “political disturbances during the spring and summer of 1989”.
The old exhibition ran from 2001 to October 2020. It spanned 7,000 square meters, covering 6,000 years of history through nearly 4,000 artifacts across eight galleries. The time was from prehistory to the 1997 handover. It received more than 10 million visitors.
It included a life-size reproduction of a fishing boat, a street scene showcasing old Hong Kong shops, and a mock-up of the old Tai Po Railway Station.
It was a popular exhibition. In the final days, hundreds flocked to see it. One corridor had photographs of the 28 British governors. People crowded to take images of them on their mobiles.
“These will never be shown again,” said Michael Leung, a schoolteacher. “They will be stored in a box in the basement. That is why we need to take photos of them all today.”
The old exhibition was created not by the British, but by the post-1997 Hong Kong government. It showed their version of the city’s history. The new one mirrors the version of history taught in the mainland – a sign of the great changes in the city since the National Security Law of June 2020.
“What is the fuss about?” said Wong Lam, a taxi driver. “History is written by the victors. That is true all over the world, and it is true here also.”
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