A depiction of the Battle of Amoy, fought between British and Chinese forces during the First Opium War. Image: Getty Images A depiction of the Battle of Amoy, fought between British and Chinese forces during the First Opium War. Image: Getty Images
A depiction of the Battle of Amoy, fought between British and Chinese forces during the First Opium War. Image: Getty Images
Rana Mitter
Opinion

Opinion

On Reflection by Rana Mitter

In Hong Kong, China should learn from India’s healthy attitude to the British Empire

  • Empire’s critics often fail to understand that imperial subjects are not passive recipients of coercion. They can make imperial structures their own
  • The structures of British rule in Hong Kong – its legal system and free media – have become a way of life not as foreign intrusions, but as another way of being Chinese

Rana Mitter
Rana Mitter

Updated: 10:11am, 22 Aug, 2020

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A depiction of the Battle of Amoy, fought between British and Chinese forces during the First Opium War. Image: Getty Images A depiction of the Battle of Amoy, fought between British and Chinese forces during the First Opium War. Image: Getty Images
A depiction of the Battle of Amoy, fought between British and Chinese forces during the First Opium War. Image: Getty Images
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Rana Mitter

Rana Mitter

Rana Mitter is Director of the University China Centre at the University of Oxford and author of A Bitter Revolution: China’s Struggle with the Modern World and China’s War with Japan, 1937-45: The Struggle for Survival