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Many conservatives, and all conservative politicians, worship the hallowed ground on which the late Margaret Thatcher walked.

A visit to Old Blighty is not complete until they have been to Westminster Abbey to kneel at her tomb, only to discover that the Iron Lady was cremated and her ashes buried at the Royal Hospital Chelsea next to those of her husband.

While staunch Labor supporters might chant the rhyme, Thatcher Thatcher, the milk snatcher among her adoring crowd she is fondly remembered for two other endearing exploits: her harsh response to exercises of trade union power, and her military response to Argentinian claims regarding the Falkland Islands.

Margaret Hilda Thatcher was Britains longest-serving Prime Minister of the 20th century, serving from 1979 until her resignation in 1990. If her memory is both loved and hated in almost equal proportions, it cannot be denied that she was able to reach out at election time in a way that appealed to that trait in the British character that usually signals their great moderation; they generally put up with inconvenience until a tipping-point is reached.

There was, however, one particular act for which Mrs Thatcher was responsible that can only now be seen to have been most ill-advised. Its worldwide implications surfaced in 2019 when the people of Hong Kong became the front line of the global battle against Beijings communism when tyranny was imposed on the island under the national security law. Within two years, the people of Hong Kong lost their liberties and became the subjects of the brutal communist state.

As the island slipped below the communist horizon, it has been forgotten that the communist takeover would not have been possible without extreme violence enabled by Margaret Thatchers error. It was the Iron Lady who permitted Hong Kong to be handed back to the communists after being outmaneuvered during the negotiations. In particular, it was falsely reckoned that the British leases from pre-communist governments would expire giving government to Beijing.

The cunning since adopted by the communists has been to rewrite the history of Hong Kong in a way that emphasises Chinas sovereignty over the island since time immemorial. It is reported that Beijing will introduce a new history book to Hong Kong schools that denies Hong Kong was ever a British colony.

The disaster of the islands takeover is detailed most clearly in Louisa Lims book, Indelible City: Dispossession and Defiance in Hong Kong. The advantages of British rule over the island are detailed in the book, as are the three fatal mistakes that sealed Hong Kongs fate.

Negotiations between the British government and the Chinese communists were commenced by Mrs Thatcher in 1982 as the 1997 end of leases from the Qing empire in 1842 loomed on the horizon.

The first mistake was the result of British bias that denied to Hong Kong democratic rule and when the last governor tried to do so, it was too late. The second mistake was British naivety about the intentions of Beijing which allowed them to be out-negotiated. The third mistake, however, was a failure to allow Hong Kongers to be involved in the negotiations. Although Margaret Thatcher told the British Parliament that the final agreement was acceptable to the Hong Kong people, those people never had any say in it.

Despite the communist claims to sovereignty, the successor to the Qing empire, the Republic of China, had given up claims to Hong Kong and Kowloon. The communist Chinese claims were based on their 1949 victory by force over the Chinese nationalists, a victory facilitated by Soviet-gifted of weapons. Maos CCP was able to exercise brute power over the Chinese people, but they had no claim to Hong Kong under the lease without the British governments agreement. The original owner of Hong Kong was dead and buried and the people of Hong Kong were entitled to the land on which they dwelt.

As Louisa Lim explains, the chief British negotiator at the time, Percy Cradock, bought completely the threat by Beijing to use force to take over Hong Kong if the negotiations failed. Instead of fighting for the peoples interests, Cradock sought to secure a form of wording that allowed Thatcher to give ground to the Chinese demands without losing face.

As a result, while the British thought that the agreement allowed the people of Hong Kong to choose their own leader, Beijing simply denied it had ever agreed and the clauses in Mandarin were ambiguous, something that the involvement of Hong Kong people could have avoided. This led to the massive protests of the Umbrella Movement in 2014.

It is worth remembering that despite the brutal suppression of the people of Hong Kong, there were no Hong Kong Lives Matter protesters on the streets, even when Daniel Andrews government sought to take a share of Beijings Belt and Road honey trap.

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Thatcher failed to protect Hong Kong - The Spectator Australia