{"id":45880,"date":"2022-06-30T08:12:03","date_gmt":"2022-06-29T23:12:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2022\/jun\/30\/the-hong-kong-unofficials-who-advised-britain-on-the-handover-and-were-ignored"},"modified":"2022-06-30T08:12:03","modified_gmt":"2022-06-29T23:12:03","slug":"the-hong-kong-unofficials-who-advised-britain-on-the-handover-and-were-ignored","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/?p=45880","title":{"rendered":"The Hong Kong \u2018unofficials\u2019 who advised Britain on the handover \u2013 and were ignored"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Reviled by Beijing and dismissed by London, a group of local advisers tried and failed to ensure the interests of Hongkongers would be protected after 1997<\/p>\n<p>In official Chinese and British versions of Hong Kong history, the choices of the great powers occupy most pages. Little room is given to the voices of the people of Hong Kong. But in the years leading up to the territory\u2019s handover in 1997, one group of local industrialists tried \u2013 and failed \u2013 to influence the course of history.<\/p>\n<p>They were called \u201cunofficials\u201d, a group of well-connected local advisers appointed by British governors to their de facto cabinet to advise on the territory\u2019s policies. For years, this group of local Hong Kong Chinese were seen as the go-to figures for complex issues. And for a long time, their advice did seem to have certain influence on colonial governors.<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2022\/jun\/30\/the-hong-kong-unofficials-who-advised-britain-on-the-handover-and-were-ignored\">Continue reading&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Reviled by Beijing and dismissed by London, a group of local advisers tried and failed to ensure the interests of Hongkongers would be protected after 1997In official Chinese and British versions of Hong Kong history, the choices of the great powers oc&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3147,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sns_share_botton_hide":"","vkExUnit_sns_title":"","_vk_print_noindex":"","sitemap_hide":"","_veu_custom_css":"","veu_display_promotion_alert":"","vkexunit_cta_each_option":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[41,50,48,52,42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-45880","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-asia-pacific","category-china","category-hong-kong","category-uk-news","category-world-news"],"veu_head_title_object":{"title":"","add_site_title":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45880","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3147"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=45880"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45880\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":45881,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45880\/revisions\/45881"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=45880"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=45880"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=45880"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}