A school student is questioned by police in the Sai Wan Ho district in Hong Kong on November 12, 2019 following a day of pro-democracy protests. Photo: AFP
In the opening to Indelible City: Dispossession and Defiance in Hong Kong, Louisa Lim is torn between journalistic neutrality and her love of Hong Kong as she is invited by guerrilla sign painters to grab a brush and help produce pro-democracy banners. When the Hong Kong protests begin over concerns about an extradition treaty, and escalate to a crackdown on freedom of expression, Lim finds herself uniquely placed to capture the city’s untold history, just as it is being erased from the official record.
While researching her book on the loss of freedom in Hong Kong, Lim came across a set of interviews which had just been released from a 30-year embargo. Undertaken with the senior Hong Kong advisors who had witnessed at close hand the diplomatic negotiations undertaken by the UK government with Beijing in the leadup to the handover of the city to mainland China, they were, she says, “astonishingly frank and emotional accounts of what they saw as betrayal by the UK authorities.”
Senior Supplies Supervisor Lin Pong-yin holds up a stained portrait of Queen Elizabeth II 17 October, which was among nearly 10,000 items bearing connotations of British sovereignty that were to be auctioned to the public. Photo: Stephen Shaver / AFP
The advisors were so upset, angry, and panicking. “And the questions that they raised [about] the weaknesses with the agreements that had been made, were all the ones that caused all the problems later on.” Based on her reading of these reports, Lim is sure that this was a strategic choice by the British, who viewed there task as being almost like a game. “In the negotiations they liked to use these metaphors of card-playing. They’d say to the Hong Kong advisors ‘Our hand is not that strong.’”
“The advisors thought the British just didn’t understand how to negotiate with the Chinese. They thought they didn’t understand the culture. They also thought they didn’t understand the language because there were not native Chinese-speakers on Britain’s negotiating team. They thought the British were being played.”
“One of the advisors said ‘If I went to shop in Harrods I wouldn’t try to haggle over the price. But if I’m buying something in China, with any negotiation, the contract is just the start of the negotiation. And the British don’t understand that.’”
Lim shares her experience of Hong Kong dispossession and defiance with Sam Sachdeva, author of The China Tightrope. A highlight recorded in May of the 2023 Auckland Writers Festival.
About the speaker
Photo: Laura Du Vé
Louisa Lim
Louisa Lim covered China and Hong Kong for two decades as a correspondent for the BBC and NPR, and has written for The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Guardian. She is the author of Stella Prize shortlisted Indelible City: Dispossession and Defiance in Hong Kong, and The People’s Republic of Amnesia: Tiananmen Revisited.
This session is broadcast thanks to the generous help of the Auckland Writers Festival held in May 2023
Photo: Auckland Writers Festival
