THE GATE TO CHINA: A New History of the People’s Republic &

by Michael Sheridan

A delightful piece of writing and research which describes the remarkable history behind the handover of this unique and exciting city' Jasper Becker

'Deeply researched and beautifully written' Mike Chinoy

A superb new history of the rise of China and the fall of Hong Kong to authoritarian rule.

The rise of China and the fall of Hong Kong to authoritarian rule are told with unique insight in this new history by Michael Sheridan, drawing on eyewitness reporting over three decades, interviews with key figures and documents from archives in China and the West.

The story sweeps the reader from the earliest days of trade through the Opium Wars of the 19th century to the age of globalisation and the handover of Hong Kong from Britain to China. It ends with the battle for democracy on the city's streets and the ultimate victory of the Chinese Communist Party.

How did it come to this? We learn from private papers that Margaret Thatcher anguished over the fate of Hong Kong, sought secret American briefings on how to handle China and put her trust in an adviser who was torn between duty and pride. The deal they made with Beijing did not last.

The Chinese side of this history, so often unheard, emerges from memoirs and documents, many new to the foreign reader, revealing how the party's iron will and negotiating tactics crushed its opponents. Yet the voices of Hong Kong people - eloquent, smart and bold - speak out here for ideals that refuse to die.

Sheridan's book tells how Hong Kong opened the way for the People's Republic as it reformed its economy and changed the world, emerging to challenge the West with a new order that raises fundamental questions about progress, identity and freedom. It is critical reading for all who study, trade or deal with China.

Genres: China, History, Nonfiction, Asia

480 pages, Paperback

Published December 1, 2021

Reviews

[Al · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellent history of British/Chinese relations from the Lord McCartney to Boris Johnson using Hong Kong as the anchor.

Fascinating read, and really insightful.

[Chase Parsley · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5/5 stars. This was an impressive and readable book about one of the most fascinating places on the planet - Hong Kong. Michael Sheridan's book starts with some history about ancient China and goes right up until the National Security Law (harsh laws that abolished protesting and many rights) in 2020. It is all here: the Opium Wars, the development of HK's ultra-capitalist economy, how the Chinese Communist party rose and changed their economic policies, the wheeling and dealing about the 1997 handoff of Hong Kong from Britain to China (note: only the New Territories was set to go back in 1997; Hong Kong Island and Kowloon Peninsula were British in perpetuity, yet China's eagerness to get it all back in 1997 was a heated debate), and the recent struggles between the people of Hong Kong and mainland Chinese government. There is much to learn here and the balance between Chinese and British sources is impressive.

Hong Kong, under British colonial rule up until the 1997 handoff to China, was a rare place that granted lots of Enlightenment freedoms (speech, press, religion, etc.) to its people, yet never gave them access to a consequential democracy. Partially this was due to Cold War politics (the British feared the Communists might somehow win a vote), and part of this related to British colonial history. But by the 1997 handoff, the British allowed more democracy partially in the hope that it would eventually lead to more rights under China, but as of 2021 it did not work out that way. After increasingly violent protests, the Chinese government slapped the National Security Law down, overnight, in June, 2020. Now, any hint of protesting was labeled as treasonous, books were banned, and people were thrown in jail. It is shameful. It makes one recall how Margaret Thatcher once said that it is too bad that the 1997 agreement existed about the New Territories because the likely outcome would have been an independent Hong Kong (like Singapore). Mainland China's promise of 50 years of politics as usual ("one country, two systems") is broken.

Hong Kong is an amazing place that I have been fortunate enough to visit twice. It is a land of contrasts, a place of hustle, and one of the most beautiful skylines I have ever seen. It has a culture all its own. I hope that there comes a time when the people of Hong Kong enjoy the rights they deserve.

[Vicky]

Abandoning this audiobook because the narration by Nigel Patterson is so, sooo dry and the first 4 hours of the 20 total were already covered in Deng Xiaoping's biography by Ezra F. Vogel. I thought about speeding thru at 2.0x the speed to finish in 7 hours, but I can't even.

Audible Notes

3. A Long Farewell / 04:09:53
ven. 22 avr. | 08:45:00
China, top executioner thru later half of 20th century

3. A Long Farewell / 03:44:22
jeu. 21 avr. | 07:44:31
British on decline, American on the rise, and China could use HK to exploit the contradictions between them

2. Reform and Opening Up / 03:11:34
mar. 19 avr. | 08:30:18
1978: critical year paving way for China to become a manufacturing GIANT, allowing for a globalized economy

2. Reform and Opening Up / 02:53:01
mar. 19 avr. | 08:10:57
When Nixon cut the dollar from gold standard, I’m unclear how China was able to seize the opportunity to gain $3 billion

2. Reform and Opening Up / 02:21:43
sam. 9 avr. | 08:06:03
DENG’S SPITOON 😆

2. Reform and Opening Up / 02:17:06
sam. 9 avr. | 08:00:59
Duan’s skills as a note taker were so extraordinary that he could write what Deng dictated, then Deng would be ok with reading it over only once and sign it to send to Beijing

2. Reform and Opening Up / 02:11:17
sam. 9 avr. | 07:52:34
The front line was also a poverty line. Per capita income, Shenzhen is 134 yuan vs Hong Kong 13000 yuan

2. Reform and Opening Up / 02:10:51
sam. 9 avr. | 07:50:41
Deng went to Shenzhen and demanded “data” (solve problem of Chinese crossing into Hong Kong)

2. Reform and Opening Up / 02:08:14
sam. 9 avr. | 07:46:17
If a person from guangdong could reply to test in Cantonese, they can pass into Hong Kong

1. Merchants and Mandarins / 01:58:09
sam. 9 avr. | 07:33:20
Chinese debt from Qing dynasty based on silver standard while British loans and interest were on sterling/gold standard

1. Merchants and Mandarins / 01:54:29
sam. 9 avr. | 07:29:02
Xianfeng dying at age of 30 worn out after signing over Kowloon to the British

[WiseB · Rating 5 out of 5]

The book is about Hong Kong's handover from British sovereignty to become a special administrative region of China. It covers the history relating to negotiations; meetings; and events based on information extracted from news media including Chinese and western; memoirs and private documents of various politicians (both British and Chinese); and different archive sources.

As one who lived in Hong Kong and then moved elsewhere after the Sino-British Joint Declaration was negotiated and signed in 1984, returned again in 1997 for the July handover and left again before Xi Jinping became general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party in 2012, I find the book very informative to fill in the void of my knowledge about Hong Kong regarding the happenings in those periods. Even for those years when I was in Hong Kong, the author enlightened me with much information that I was not aware of or unknown to the public.

The take home from reading the book, apart from enjoying the narrative form of this historical perspective, is Hong Kong's handover was designated by design of China leadership after it served its purpose for China as a "Gate" to the west both in and out while China was still struggling to get on its feet to become strong financially and politically. It appears Hong Kong's role is designed to change from being a "Gate" to becoming a "Model" of what a Chinese city shall become when interacting with other states or nations.

[Tom Oman · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was well done, it's a level headed run through of Hong Kong's recent history without too many surprises or revelations. The basic outline that Hong Kong began as an outpost of the British Empire and existed as a bastion of Western capitalism in the East is the underlying framework for an understanding of Hong Kong. How that plays out is the interesting part.

The British felt that this highly prosperous outpost would be able to fend for itself because of the apparent merits of Western capitalism and democracy.
Deng Xiaoping was indeed an admirer of the successes of this social model, especially in combination with Chinese cultural characteristics. The Chinese are indeed the original capitalists, and decades of stifled development at the hands of imported social and economic experiments combined with the insanity of Stalinist governance was nothing but a temporary aberration in the context of their history.

Even though Deng walked the line between appeasement and foreshadowing during the 1984 discussions with Margaret Thatcher, he made it very apparent what intentions the Chinese nationalist project would pursue. Rather, it was a misinterpretation and perhaps delusion from the Western side, believing that Hong Kong would remain as the exemplary showcase of free-market capitalism coupled with Chinese cultural characteristics. They were so smug with their creation that they believed that this little gnat would serve to kill the mammoth with kindness and brand name accessories.
Even though Deng and his crew were sufficiently enamored with the success of Hong Kong, they understood that it rode on the back of fundamentals inherent to the Chinese nation. That is to say, Hong Kong’s success was a reflection of HK’s unique position as the junction of two worlds and its proximity and opportunity to exploit the economic realities of the southern Pearl River Delta; nature thrives on convergences and this was the perfect union of trusted western institutions of banking, property rights, rule of law, and the cheap and abundant labour of southern China. The awe-inspiring statistics behind this rise were simply a reflection of the latent potential of the Chinese nation as a whole, the way that the first violent crack in a dam gives a glimpse of the kinetic energy being withheld.

When Margaret Thatcher and the British lulled themselves into a sense of complacency and disregard for Hong Kong, it was based on their own cultural blind spots: mainly their aforementioned faith in the triumph of free market ideas, their underestimation of Deng and the CCP’s resilience, and a general lack of knowledge of the undercurrent and continuity of Chinese cultural history. In the clarity of present day, with the forces behind China’s inevitable rise laid bare, it shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone that the CCP pursued its aims in the most direct and unaccommodating way possible.
After the handover in 1997, the resulting outcome was a slow choking off of respiration and a gradual subduing of whatever tastes Hong Kong had for the Western ideal. The CCP understood that continued economic growth had benefits, both in the form of real-world complacency on the ground, but it also served to subvert any opposition to their increasingly intensified control program. They allowed Hong Kong to prosper and in turn spill over those benefits into the southern Pearl River Delta as a test case, with the understanding that this allowed for maximum exposure, for a time when submission and complacency would pave the way for the consolidation of CCP prerogatives. It was a case of the boiling frog where very few citizens were astute enough to recognize the game. Therefore, even the most foresighted opposition was undermined by proponents of the status quo. It was divide and conquer writ large, across the board but under the radar.
It is difficult to overestimate the Chinese nationalist program in terms of its ability to undermine Hong Kong autonomy and therefore swallow the metropole whole. Anyone who denies that this outcome is inevitable is patently naïve. For Hong Kong is the test case for the wider project of Chinese national unification, which more prominently includes the subjugation of Taiwan. Something that I find amazing about Chinese leaders is that they are absolutely explicit about their intentions; however, it seems like there is repeated misinterpretation behind most of the policies of the West. That is to say that Western democracies tend to fall ignorant of realpolitik and actionable power systems. They cannot remove themselves from their own paradigm and therefore fundamentally misunderstand the clear directive of the Chinese Communist Party and its now clearly charted nationalist programming. Now that it’s come into focus it is way too late for meaningful opposition.
This lack of unity and western navel gazing, is a soft white underbelly that the Chinese are all too capable of exploiting. Anyone who has a dissenting view of these policies is considered a hardliner or, at the very least, conflict-oriented. It’s my belief that the Chinese Communist Party will inevitably swallow its satellites and anything it considers to be within its historical or future scope of identity and political or economic interest. Hong Kong, Taiwan, and the South China Sea are in some ways only the beginning. It’s impossible for the West to appreciate their longevity of perspective, which amounts to insurmountable patience. When Zhou Enlai was asked about his thoughts on the French Revolution of 1789 during the visit of Nixon and Kissinger in 1973, his response was simply that “it’s too early to draw conclusions.” This emphatic detail is the summary of Chinese national thought and how it dwarfs the West with its scope of insight.

[Edwina · Rating 5 out of 5]

An insightful and sublime book about the history of Hong Kong, as a gate to China that tracks its establishment as a Colony of the British Empire following the Opium Wars to the history of the negotiations and events that led up to the transfer of sovereignty from British hands back to the People's Republic of China. Sheridan masterfully does this by providing private documents of politicians, extracts from news media and also tracks China as it rose towards being more globalised through its economy supported by the reforms made by Deng Xiaoping from the 1980s onwards. This was equally fascinating, comprehensive, informative yet at the same time poignant, bittersweet to the legacies of both Hong Kong following the handover and the end to British rule specifically the attempts of political reforms for universal suffrage under the last governor Chris Patten.

Sheridan's lines on the 2019-20 protests stayed with me in particular, which was this : "in any case, Hong Kongers were tougher than they were sometimes given credit for. The oldest generation had endured hardship and war, the middle-aged had kept steady heads through decades of uncertainty and the youngsters wanted a decent future. The other truth was that most people really loved their home; its islands and seas, its sunsets and summer downpours, the sizzle of fresh food at the roadside and the din of family banquets, loyalties to school, clan, church and temple, the chance to hustle and the lightly taxed rewards of work, all conducted to a soundtrack of quick witted chatter on the airwaves and a cacophony of entertainment from all over Asia. It was worth a fight."

Five stars! Would highly recommend if you are interested in history, politics or social issues!

[Jacob Rogers · Rating 5 out of 5]

I may be boosting this a bit more than I should out of nostalgia but I really enjoyed this history of the relationship between Hong Kong and China. Chinese history is a large thing that is difficult to penetrate and study but the lens of Hong Kong provides the perfect entry point to understanding the modern Chinese state and how it got to where it is and how many western countries deceived themselves into thinking it would change. Having a knowledge of the city itself helped as I didn’t need to reference a map to understand locations, but I would recommend this to anyone wanting to better understand Modern China. It’s also the first history book I’ve read where I actually witnessed some of the events which is kinda wild. Did a mix of audio and actual text, probably would have been better to just read the physical book but I still understand the broad strokes.

[Toby Mathers · Rating 5 out of 5]

A well-researched book that summarises China’s and Hong Kong’s relationship throughout modern history. (It is probably) Contentious to judge the degree of balanced perspective, Shedian presents arguments from various stakeholders through numerous historical records, memories, interviews, biographies, and more, on the conflicting narratives of the Handover of Hong Kong from British administration to China’s right to exercise sovereignty.

It chronologically depicts this relationship and the ceding of Hong Kong to China. First, it opens up with a historical narrative and details on the characterisation of the ‘The Hundred Years of Humiliation’ from one of the many Chinese perspectives, and ends on the recent notes in 2020, when the world was experiencing the coronavirus pandemic, and Hong Kong specifically saw protests (which grew violent at times) within society subsequently taper out.

Each page is filled with captivating stories of the political dramas that surrounds the relationship, from the Hong Kong Tycoons to the British negotiators, as well as the less easily accessible and publicly personal lives of Chinese leaders and their affiliates.

I recommend this book to anyone interested in the relationship and how historical events shed much influence and importance on the political debates of today. It could be seen as a case study on how the British (and other foreign powers) conducted themselves in China and their dutiful plan to rectify their colonial activities of the past to comply with modern values and geopolitics

[Sisi · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5/5 A fascinating read! Some chapters rambled on slightly, in my opinion, but nonetheless, a well written (and mostly easily digestible) book.

[Karen Yu · Rating 5 out of 5]

The course of my life was shaped by the political tensions between China, Hong Kong and Britain as my parents decided to move our family to Canada after the handover in 1997. Now living in the UK, it feels like a very full circle moment.

It was very insightful to learn more about the origins of Hong Kong dating back to the Qing Dynasty and the Opium Wars all the way up to the 2019 protests. I previously only had broad knowledge about the history but this book allowed me to understand the significant players in the British, Chinese and Hong Kong side and the conversations and negotiations that have shaped the destiny of Hong Kong today.

It's a long read, but I appreciated the level of detail; it's given me a deeper understanding of the political, economic and social forces of Hong Kong.

[The Bamboo Traveler · Rating 5 out of 5]

Before I started this book, I thought it was a simple history of Hong Kong from its beginnings up to the present.
Wrong.
It's about the history of how China attained complete control of Hong Kong starting from the negotiations between it and Britain on Hong Kong's handover to the passing of the national security law in 2020.
I learned a lot about Hong Kong and China from this book, which helped me understand China better.
I highly recommend it!
If you are looking for a book on the handover and the protests of 2014 and 2019 in Hong Kong from the perspective of a Hong Konger, I recommend Indelible City and Impossible City.

[Peter Harris · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting book on the rise of Hong Kong from the Opium war to the modern day. Hong Kong helped show China how to recover from the cultural revolution disaster be first investing in China into being a cheap manufacturing hub to copying and improving the supply of goods to the world. A lot of useful insights and detailed analysis of individual around the decisions made around the one country, two systems and it’s ultimate failure to last. From a window of hope on China to the reality of loss of political freedom and mass emigration to escape the national security law the failure of one country two systems means this is unlikely to be a mechanism in the future

[Anthony · Rating 5 out of 5]

Now that’s how you write a book! That was not only informative but felt like an effortless read. The topic is so intriguing and the narrative is so expertly done. There are a lot of academic tomes out there which are a chore to read. This is approachable while maintaining an impressive degree of knowledge.

[Prayash Giria · Rating 5 out of 5]

Immensely readable broad-scope history of Hong Kong, with Sheridan being particularly skilled at explaining complex political, cultural, and economic undercurrents in layman terms, and helping the reader get a better sense of the ongoing evolution of the city. This could’ve been a very boring book in lesser hands, but I came away feeling more impressed than I was expecting myself to be!

[Hans · Rating 5 out of 5]

What an incredible ride since 1841. Nothing replaces the bustling city, roaring economy, and can do attitude of Hong Kong, Shenzhen and the whole region. The run on the Hong Kong dollar, and how that was tackled is phenomenal, let alone how HK entrepreneurs moved their factories into the mainland. It puts the last decades into context.

[Alex · Rating 4 out of 5]

History of Hong Kong and China, focusing primarily on the 1980 negotiations on the handover through modern day times. More political history, and book at its best in discussing the negotiations between Thatcher and the Chinese leaders in the 1980s, before China had opened up.

[Andy Schneider · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fascinating book. First and last third are the best. The middle does get a bit turgid due to the amount of information the author tries to cram in.

[Hansen Lillemark · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5
written by a journalist

[Gonzalo · Rating 3 out of 5]

Buen overview de China y Hong Kong, aunque asume demasiada familiaridad con partes claves de la historia

[daffaakbar om · Rating 5 out of 5]

A deep, well-written account on the history of Hong Kong and its relations with China as well as the UK, from the pre-colonial era up until the 2020s. Very good introduction to post-2014 Hong Kong in its later chapters. The book enables us to understand the build-up to Hong Kong's current situation from a historical perspective, especially from new accounts such as interviews, memoirs, and declassified documents, especially from the Chinese side. Must read.

[GM · Rating 3 out of 5]

- rather than a history of Hong Kong it's more about Hong Kong in relation to China
- majority of the book focuses on the negotiations between GB & CHN on the handover for HK - about Article 38, number of seats on LegCo, how to elect the execs etc
- followed by SARS (because it was transmitted from China) to 2014 Umbrella Movement to 2019 Protests
- disappointed in the lack of Hong Kong voice apart from Joshua Wong and others at the end. I wanted to understand more about the effects of GB as well and the changes made then, but that section was probs 2% of the entire book
- There book mentions that HK people were not interested in politics before the handover but that's incorrect. It's more that they were not allowed to speak of politics & and it was never mentioned in the news; what is there to discuss when they were firmly under British rule?


"The last governor would stay on for three more years until the handover. He owed his success to tenacity, guile, political skill and keeping one's nerve, all supposedly traditional gifts of British statesmanship."
- it's very apparent that the author is British even without searching him up.

"[Tung Chee-hwa] had the air of a patriarch and the comfortable manners of a gentleman, quite unlike some of the coarse cadres from the north...He spoke of "Chinese values" such as a reverence for education, respect for elders, dedication to work, loyalty to family, diligence and frugality. When a Jewish correspondent present interjected that these could also be said to be Jewish values, or indeed universal values, he did not dissent."

"The single biggest Victor was the democratic party led by Martin Lee, which won 19 seats... It would only hold office for 21 months. 'It showed that you cannot drop democracy if you want the rule of law and individual freedoms', said Lee. 'Hong Kong people got used to that, so are no longer frightened And that is something which any chief executive will find it very hard to follow.'"

"Before their separation (Diana & Charles), officials in Whitehall had considered Charles as a potential governor of Hong Kong with Diana as his consort."

"The counter argument was put by Joseph Yam at the end of that turbulent year (1998 Asian Financial Crisis). " Our actions in August were not the end of non-interventionism, nor an abandonment of our free market principles but a measure taken to ensure that those principles prevailed. Free markets cannot mean markets that can be freely manipulated, particularly by big players operating in small markets. Not to have acted would have been the very height of an irresponsibility."
- Context: On hedge funds shorting HKD & Hang Seng Index leading to the HK gov propping up the market & pegging to the USD, there were arguments that these actions went against the free market.

"Throughout the period, mainland Chinese media identified Hong Kong as a source of moral contamination. In the late 1990s, it estimated that 100,000 men from Hong Kong and Macau kept mistresses in the Pearl River Delta, 50,000 out of wedlock with no legal documents, denying them education or healthcare. Villages of "second wives" grew up along the north bank of the Shenzhen river, inhabited by the concubines of container truck drivers, white collar workers, factory managers and business executives."