City BeatChina-US relationship: from ‘same bed, different dreams’ to a break-up over Hong Kong
- It looks like Beijing and Washington can never be the allies that the Chinese leadership had desired, nor can Hong Kong afford to be a bystander amid this
- Whatever sanctions Washington imposes will not help a city in which the US also has its own share of interests
It was a sunny day and I was a TV reporter for the city’s leading broadcaster in October 1997, three months after Hong Kong’s return to Chinese sovereignty, when we flew into beautiful Hawaii.
My crew and I were waiting for the most significant visit by a Chinese leader to the United States since the late paramount leader Deng Xiaoping’s milestone trip back in 1979.
Two “firsts” there: then-president Jiang Zemin would be the first Chinese leader, breaking Western isolation of the mainland over the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown, to set foot on American soil for a state visit, accepting US counterpart Bill Clinton’s relationship-building invitation; and it was the first time Hong Kong reporters would be allowed to “officially” cover major diplomatic activities of the country’s leadership, signifying the British colony’s return to the motherland after more than a century.
An official from the foreign ministry in Beijing had tipped me off that Hawaii would be Jiang’s first stop, a deliberate arrangement as he would visit Pearl Harbour to remind both sides of an almost forgotten part of history: the two countries were allies during second world war, although China’s participation was under Kuomintang rule.
“We were once allies, we could be allies again,” the official said.