Britain relinquished its main remaining colony of Hong Kong to China 20 years ago this weekend. The handover ceremony at the hastily completed Convention Centre was a perfect tableau of the dignified end of empire; under giant Chinese and British flags, President Jiang Zemin and Prince Charles shook hands watched by Tony Blair, senior Chinese officials and, to the left of the stage, the last governor, Chris Patten. With Chief Secretary Anson Chan perched like a monarch above the proceedings, the final act of a sequence agreed between London and Beijing more than a dozen years earlier passed off like clockwork.
20年前的本周末，英國向中國移交了手中剩下的主要殖民地——香港。在倉促完工的香港會展中心進行的交接儀式成為大英帝國莊嚴落幕的完美畫面；在中英兩國巨幅國旗之下，江澤民主席與查爾斯王子(Prince Charles)握手，托尼?布萊爾(Tony Blair)、中國高級官員以及禮臺左側的末代港督彭定康(Chris Patten)分列兩旁注視。在布政司陳方安生(Anson Chan)君王般的監督下，倫敦與北京十幾年前商定的一系列程序的最后一步就像時鐘一樣順利走完。