After extensive negotiations, Mrs. Thatcher inked her signature to the Sino-British Joint Declaration in 1984, thus agreeing to return Hong Kong--Britain's last remaining major colony--to Chinese rule, a memory that nearly three decades later continues to reverberate as the city navigates its at times stormy relations with the mainland.
Mrs. Thatcher had originally hoped that the British could continue to administer the city after it returned to Chinese sovereignty. Instead, under the terms of the declaration, the Chinese agreed the city could continue to retain a high degree of autonomy, including its own political and economic system, for a period of 50 years.
'We can say that she made her biggest compromise as prime minister in this issue, ' wrote the nationalist tabloid Global Times in a Tuesday editorial .
In a sign of just how deep an impression she left on the former British colony, newspapers across Hong Kong Tuesday splashed numerous full-page eulogies commemorating Mrs. Thatcher across their front pages, adorning them with images of white roses, chrysanthemums and lilies. In Chinese tradition, white flowers are used to signify mourning.
Since Hong Kong returned to Chinese control in 1997, the city's identity has grown increasingly enmeshed with that of the mainland, particularly as tens of millions of Chinese tourists have flooded Hong Kong to shop, buy property and even give birth.
For many Hong Kong locals, the iconic memory of Mrs. Thatcher remains the image of the blue-clad prime minister tripping and tumbling down the steps as she exited the Great Hall of the People in Beijing in 1982, a video clip that aired widely in Hong Kong at the time and was reprised in various stills in newspapers across the city Tuesday. Mrs. Thatcher would later go on to praise the 'brilliance' of her Chinese negotiating partner, Deng Xiaoping.
In reflecting on Mrs. Thatcher's passing, several Hong Kong democratic activists were critical of her legacy in Hong Kong. Emily Lau, a former reporter and current legislator, recalled asking Mrs. Thatcher during a 1984 visit to Hong Kong after she signed the Joint Declaration whether it was morally defensible to deliver six million Hong Kong residents into the hands of a communist dictatorship. Mrs. Thatcher replied that she believed most Hong Kong locals accepted the arrangement, and suggested Ms. Lau was perhaps the 'solitary exception.'
'That marked a very, very dishonorable chapter in the history of the British Empire, ' said Ms. Lau, who argues that the former British prime minister 'didn't look after the well-being of Hong Kong people.'
刘慧卿说，这是英国历史上非常非常不光彩的一章，她说，这名前英国首相没有考虑香港人的福祉。
Still, though, Martin Lee, a former Hong Kong legislator and the city's best-known crusader for democracy, said that those years were a time of greater optimism about the city's political future. At this point, whether Hong Kong will be able to directly elect its own leaders without interference from Beijing remains an open question. But at the time, Mrs. Thatcher wasn't alone in believing Hong Kong would have a good chance at self-determination, he says.
Mr. Lee recalled his pre-handover exchanges with Mrs. Thatcher fondly, and said that she seemed genuinely concerned about Hong Kong's future.
李柱铭回忆了他与撒切尔夫人在香港回归之前的愉快交流，他说，她似乎真心地关切香港的未来。
'It was a different time, ' he said. 'We all thought we'd just wait 10 years and then we'd have democracy.'
他说，那时不一样，我们都认为只需要等待10年就会拥有民主。
On the eve of the 1997 handover, Mrs. Thatcher sounded an optimistic note in an interview, saying that she hoped Hong Kong would one day be a model for all of China. 'Chinese people will come to Hong Kong, they'll see and they'll say why is it different, and what is the difference?' she said. 'It is the same people, the same talents, but here there is a rule of law founded on the belief that each and every person matters in personal lives, ' she said. Hong Kong, she said, 'is a flagship of what the China people can do.'
