After the Dystopia unit, we have finally moved towards history. With this new unit, we learned the concepts needed to think about history in a way that divides the thinking into 6 categories. Answering what these categories present to people analyzing history will give them a very clear and accurate understanding of an event in history. These categories were named,

Historical Significance: What and who should be remembered in history?

Evidence and Interpretation:Is the evidence adequate to support the conclusions reached?

Continuity and Change: How are lives and conditions alike over time and how have they changed?

Cause and Consequence : What are the range of factors that contributed to the event?

Historical Perspective: Are interpretations of the event different from the past and present day?

Ethical Judgement: Is what happened right and fair?

Our first project for this unit is to choose one of the 6 concepts and provide a presentation to the class on what the concept was and give to apply it to an historic event. Each of the groups were to provide some parameters and questions to ask when answering these questions to give a a good answer. This is something put together by me that summarizes what should be asked when answering the 6 concepts. I call it the Historic Poppy.

 

 

We were then instructed to apply all of these words of wisdom into interpreting an event of our choosing. I chose the event where Hong Kong was ceded back to China in 1997.

First, some background knowledge. Way back in in 1839, the British invaded China any opposition to their interference of Chinese economic, social, and political affairs. Hong Kong, an island with few people living on it was occupied by the British. After the Convention of Chuenpi was between the Chinese and the British, parts of Hong Kong was ceded over to the British. In 1898, all of the Hong Kong region was leased to the British, Ever since, it has become a major trading center from the Europeans to the East. As the treaty came to an end ion 1997, Hong Kong was returned to China but retained a majority of the British political and social structure.

Time to answer some questions.

Historical Significance: The event must have been very well known during the time because it directly involved the British Empire and China. Two powerful countries over a territorial dispute is something no one misses especially when the Chinese leader threatens to take Hong Kong by force when negotiations turn sour and Margaret Thatcher, Prime Minister of Britain says “there is nothing I could do to stop you, but the eyes of the world would now know what China is like”. This all implies that the handover was a closely observed topic because of who was involved. Although the world may have watched it from far away, the people of Hong Kong found the event very significant because some interpreted it as a symbol of reunification with their countrymen in China under one system. Some others interpreted it as a dismal event because some were happy with British rule and had a bad perception of the ruling of Communist China.

Evidence and Interpretation: My example of evidence will be from The Guardian newspaper. The paper here provides perfectly relevant evidence and indirectly mentions the event in question. As for if the source can be trusted, that would be a yes. The Guardian is a long standing newspaper company in the United Kingdom that has roots back to the 1800’s. I am sure if their credibility was ever questioned badly, they would have shutdown by now. The evidence supports the topic through mentioning the downfall of the British Empire through the loss of Hong Kong. This definitely is relevant to Britain losing Hong Kong.

Continuity and Change: After Hong Kong was handed over to China, some changes were made but there were definitely continuities. An example of continuity was the decision by the Chinese leader to let Hong Kong’s economic and political systems stay the same. This was to last for 50 years from 1997 and it is definitely for the better because an overnight switch over to the socialism would not have gone down very well with a population that was content with capitalism. Among the many changes was how Hong Kong was directly represented by China. Some found it satisfying because they are represented by their original country while others found communism revolting and were rushing to immigrate away. In terms of this change, it negatively impacted the population of Hong Kong.

Cause and Effect: The people who were involved were China, Britain, and Hong Kong. Since Britain and China are the belligerents in this event, they were the ones providing the action for the event to happen. As mentioned in the background knowledge section, Britain had leased and taken the Hong Kong area in the 1800’s. Through the 99 year lease of the Hong Kong, the event came to be because the lease was about to expire in 1997. This event definitely would not have happened because if Britain had never taken Hong Kong, then China would have held onto it and never had to take it back from anyone. It was definitely intended for Hong Kong to be returned to China with several concessions from China but there were some unintended consequences. These consequences were mainly protests that grew in size and number every time the happened. An example would be the Umbrella Movement of 2014 This was also a significant turning point in history as it is often marked as the end of the British Empire.

 

Historical Perspective: From a present perspective, I do believe there is an equal amount of criticisms and applause for this act. On one hand, people like the handover because of Hong Kong returning to the people that owned it in the first place and also how Hong Kong is ruled by an Asian country again. Others feel that the action was misguided because of their hatred towards the Chinese government and how it is communist. I do believe peoples perspective on the matter is slightly guided by the fact that democracy is considered superior in many ways than communism which makes them question the handover.

Ethical Judgement: I strongly believe that the event happened in the most ethical way possible because of all the precautions taken that would prevent anything unethical from happening. Things like the decision to let Hong Kong stay unchanged for 50 years and many other continuities support this. These ethical decisions and continuities were all justified because the shock of removing these ethical things would have made the people of Hong Kong very unhappy which would be unethical. In the end, there is no way of saying that an event is right or wrong because peoples interpretations change.

 

The reason I chose this topic is because I am from Hong Kong myself. I felt confident I could answer all the questions of the 6 key historical thinking concepts because I had primary sources by my side in the form of my parents. Researching about this event also gave me a little lesson on the history of Hong Kong and an understanding as to where all the anti communistic feelings come from. This has definitely enriched how I will study history in the future.