The City on a Hill

摘要

What happened last week was once unimagin-able. As a young correspondent for NEWSWEEK in the mid-1960s, I had covered Hong Kong's darkest days. China's Cultural Revolution—fomented by revolutionaries waving Mao's Little Red Book—spilled across the border and threatened to end the colony's British rule. Platoons of British-led riot police battled hundreds of rock-throwing Chinese students and workers in the city's streets. One night in the warrens of Wanchai, rebels pelted us with flowerpots from tall buildings as we watched police sharpshooters gun down the rioters. The British army on the border was on full alert, the city under nighttime curfew. The American Consulate drew up evacuation plans. In the end, however, Beijing neVer gave the word to invade; the Red Guards did not cross the line. But last Monday—by treaty, not by force of arms—the Chinese finally crossed the border. Following the old Anglican hymn "The Day Thou Gavest, Lord, Is Ended," a lone piper from the Black Watch played a lament as the Union Jack was lowered in a monsoon. Hours later, truckloads of People's Liberation Army soldiers rumbled into Hong Kong.