WITH A clenched-jaw nod from the Prince of Wales, a last rendition of God Save the Queen, and a wind machine to keep the Union flag flying for a final 16 minutes of indoor pomp, Britain last night at midnight shut down the empire that once encompassed a quarter of the globe.
Nearly five centuries after Vasco de Gama launched an era of European empire building in Asia, and 50 years after Britain put the process in reverse with independence in India, it took only a quarter of an hour of martial pomp and minutely scripted ceremony to end 156 years of British colonial rule in Hong Kong.
At dawn today, China stamped its authority on its new possession, when 4,000 troops backed by armoured cars and helicopters crossed into the territory. But the army, struggling to shake off the stigma of the Tiananmen Square massacre, projected a softer image, with many troops wearing ties and white gloves rather than combat gear.
In Beijing last night, more than 100,000 people gathered in the square to count down the last seconds of British rule, the biggest gathering there since the 1989 massacre, and proclaim the emergence of China as a great power cleansed of colonial shame.
At the formal handover ceremony, Prince Charles bequeathed Britain╒s last big overseas domain to Jiang Zemin, a former trainee at the Stalin Auto Works in Moscow and now head of the world╒s last major, albeit zealously capitalist, Communist Party.
The occasion, planned since an accord signed by Margaret Thatcher in 1984, was conducted in English and Mandarin, languages that most people of Cantonese-speaking Hong Kong do not understand ╤ a blunt reminder that, unlike previous acts of imperial retreat, the start of Chinese rule thrusts 6.4 million people into the embrace of a new master sometimes as alien as the departing power.
╥We shall not forget you, and we shall watch with the closest interest as you embark on this new era of your remarkable history,╙ promised Prince Charles.
The transfer, completed in a glass-encased hall overlooking the harbour that first attracted the covetous eye of British opium traffickers, climaxed a day of rain and tear-soaked British pageantry, Sino-British summitry and carefully calibrated discourtesies.
Less than an hour into Chinese rule, as the royal yacht Britannia slipped its moorings, carrying Prince Charles and the 28th and last British governor, Chris Patten, out of Victoria Harbour at the head of a flotilla of British ships bound for Manila, pro-democracy politicians gathered on the balcony of the Legislative Council to protest at China╒s abolition of Hong Kong╒s elected assembly.
╥Why must we pay such a high price to be Chinese?╙ asked Martin Lee, leader of the Democratic Party.
╥We are proud to be Chinese, more proud than ever before. But why is it that our leaders in China will not give us more democracy, but take away the modest democracy we have fought so hard to win from the British government.╙
A crowd, swelled by television crews, engulfed Statue Square, an adjacent plaza dominated by a bronze likeness of a dour Victorian banker.
Throughout the day Britain stressed its own contribution to Hong Kong╒s prosperity while China barely acknowledged Britain╒s presence. ╥This is a Chinese city, a very Chinese city with British characteristics,╙ said Mr Patten, at a British farewell festival, held next to the Prince of Wales Barracks, now stripped of its name and full of Chinese soldiers. Radio frequencies used by British Armed Forces Radio now only crackle with static.
Chinese leaders arrived by air too late to attend a rain-drenched British farewell festival at sunset and then skipped a British banquet. But in a small but unexpected gesture, Mr Jiang shook the hand of Mr Patten, vilified by Beijing as a ╥sinner for a thousand generations╙ because of the modest political reforms he introduced.
Tony Blair, in Hong Kong for barely 12 hours, and the Foreign Secretary, Robin Cook, both later stayed away from a Chinese ceremony to swear in a new puppet legislature. It was a civil, correct, exchange of property but a far cry from the warmth and passions ╤ quickly followed by bloodshed ╤ that accompanied Britain╒s exit from India.
