Hong Kong Prepares For Handover

Exuberant but also nervous, this city of 6.3 million residents prepared Sunday to celebrate its independence from Britain at midnight tonight, when the Union Jack will be permanently lowered after 156 years and the territory will revert to Chinese rule.

The party mood was marked by music, food and a flurry of last-minute shopping, particularly for newly fashionable clothing inspired by traditional Chinese styles.

The nervousness was expressed in a smattering of protests by civil rights advocates, who are highly suspicious of China’s Communist government and fear that Beijing will crush the limited democracy introduced at the last minute by the departing colonial power.

“If we return to China under democracy and freedom, we will be happy,” said Tony Cheung, 52, a schoolteacher who attended a public forum near the harbor in Kowloon at which pro-democracy leaders urged residents to stand firm for their freedoms.

Mindful of the anxieties of many in Hong Kong, Chinese President Jiang Zemin Sunday repeated his pledge that the Communist regime would respect the autonomy it has promised the territory, which has been ruled since 1841 by Britain. The British seized Hong Kong after defeating the Chinese in the Opium Wars, fought after the Qing emperor forbade British merchants to sell the drug to his subjects.