Hong Kong handover

Hong Kong handover

Every day the news of Hong Kong's handover to China is beamed
on CNN, as it is a major historic event in terms of international
law and politics.

Were it not for the colony's economic and strategic importance
as an Asian outpost, the big fuss about its return to China, with
the expiry of the 99-year lease on July 1, 1997, would be absent
from the newsreels.

Listening to the eloquent pronouncements of Hong Kong
legislators on the historic event on CNN, one gets the impression
that they bespeak their prolific intellectual capabilities and
realistic outlook, in full appraisal of the existing political
circumstances weighed against vested economic interests. It is
worth noting that English is spoken as if a native tongue. Lucid
prose emerges from conversations in interviews.

All this suggests that in the process of building a country,
individual capabilities and achievements play a vital role. Each
individual performance provides the basis for the overall
accomplishment at the national level. And in the end, as the
result of such accomplishment, examples abound that however small
a country's population or territorial extent, it succeeds to gain
a respectable status among wealthy countries.

It is obvious that such prodigious achievement should be
attributed to the advancement and qualities of education, with
its fruits widely reaped by the populace.

Improving education plays such a crucial role in a country's
development that British Prime Minister Tony Blair used this as
his theme in the recent election campaign.

Then, on Larry King's talk show on June 24, 1997, U.S. Vice
President Al Gore emphasized need to improve education. And when
the Second Lady, Tipper Gore, later joined the show, she said
that the future of a country lies in the education of its
children.

Needless to say, the truth of this maxim will not be confined
within national boundaries, but will instead find universal
acclaim and application, irrespective of ideologies.

SAM SUHAEDI

Jakarta