许家屯在香港

 香港是一个旁观者，但共产党的分裂使其成为一个轰动和神秘的歌剧舞台。

1989年，来自江苏的许家屯是香港的头号中国人，尽管他以自由主义者的身份而闻名，但却是一个值得信赖的共产党人。

许家屯年轻时入党，在抗日游击队中担任政委。

他在毛主义中国的清洗中幸存下来，被任命为党委书记，后来又被任命为其家乡的书记。

1983年，当许家屯已经67岁的时候，党挑选他去香港担任新华社社长，成为北京在殖民地的高级代表。

 

Hong Kong was a sideshow, but the split in the Communist Party made it the stage for a sensational and mysterious operetta. In 1989 the top Chinese figure in Hong Kong was Xu Jiatun from Jiangsu province, a trusted Communist despite his reputation as a liberal. Xu had joined the party as a young man and served as political commissar in a guerrilla unit fighting the Japanese. He survived the purges of Maoist China to be appointed as party secretary and later as governor of his home province. In 1983, when Xu was already sixty-seven, the party picked him to go to Hong Kong as director of the New China News Agency, becoming the senior representative of Beijing in the colony.

 

1983年至1989年期间，许家屯在香港的形象令人放心。

他培养了党的同情者和反对者。

他与富豪建立关系，说服他的同志们，马克思主义者和超级富豪之间的联盟将有利于中国的利益。

这些都是典型的 "联合阵线 "战术，具有无可挑剔的意识形态血统。

他在北京的关系跨度很大，包括赵紫阳这样的改革者和杨尚昆总统这样的死硬派，所以他对香港的意见得到了尊重。

他对文学和新闻感兴趣，与各媒体的编辑和评论员交朋友。

他培养了电影制片人邵逸夫爵士，并享受他的 "颓废 "电影作品。

有一次，许家屯甚至像一个成熟的男模特一样出现在一个时装秀的T台上，穿着剪裁精良的毛泽东套装。

 

Xu cut a reassuring figure in Hong Kong between 1983 and 1989. He cultivated sympathisers and opponents of the party. He built relationships with tycoons, persuading his comrades that an alliance between Marxists and the super-rich would serve China’s interests. These were classic ‘United Front’ tactics of impeccable ideological lineage. His connections in Beijing crossed the spectrum to include reformers like Zhao Ziyang and diehards like the president Yang Shangkun, so his opinions on Hong Kong commanded respect. He was interested in literature and journalism, making friends with editors and commentators across the spectrum of the media. He cultivated the movie producer Sir Run Run Shaw and enjoyed his ‘decadent’ cinematic fare. Once Xu even appeared on a catwalk at a fashion show like a mature male model, sporting a well-cut Mao suit.

 

这些都不应该在他的任务上欺骗香港。

许家屯监督大陆资金通过顺从的大亨流向当地亲北京的政客。

他向大律师和活动家李柱铭提供资金以建立一个政党，但李拒绝了他。

他暗示，该党的现金支持司徒华，司徒华是一名工会组织者，后来背弃了工会，与李柱铭一起成为民主运动的创始者。

None of this should have deceived Hong Kong about his mission. Xu oversaw the flow of mainland money through compliant tycoons to local pro-Beijing politicians. He offered Martin Lee, the barrister and activist, money to found a party but Lee turned him down. Xu hinted that the party’s cash was supporting Szeto Wah, a trade union organiser who later turned his back on it to become, with Lee, a founding father of the democracy movement.

 

许家屯善于将软性外交与低调的威胁相结合。

他表示，中国已经悄悄地将5万人带入了香港，他们正在那里努力争取在公务员和专业领域有影响力的职位。

如果英国人在1997年之前撤走，这些人就会接管香港。

其含义很清楚：在新的香港，北京的反对者不可能希望得到恩惠或好处。

 

Xu was adept at combining soft diplomacy with understated menace. He suggested that China had quietly brought 50,000 people into Hong Kong, where they were working their way into positions of influence in the civil service and the professions. If the British pulled out before 1997 these people would take over. The implication was clear: no opponent of Beijing could hope for preferment or advantage in the new Hong Kong.

 

作为政委、行政长官和外交官，许家屯似乎是处理其主要任务的最佳人选，即管理香港的地下共产党。

该党从未公开过，也没有参加过选举。

它仍然可以有效地否认，被掩盖在纪律和秘密之中。

其未申报的党员是安置在有影响力职位上的资产。

许家屯后来吹嘘说，他可以安排大量的共产党员加入，从而控制一个亲北京的政党--民主建港联盟。

 

Commissar, administrator and diplomat, Xu appeared to be a sound choice to handle his main task, running the underground Communist Party in Hong Kong. The party had never become public or contested an election. It remained usefully deniable, cloaked in discipline and secrecy. Its undeclared members were assets to place in positions of influence. Xu boasted later that he could arrange for a large number of Communists to join and thus to control a pro-Beijing party, the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment of Hong Kong.

 

然而，他的政治判断力却被蒙上了一层阴影。

许家屯向邓小平转达了一批香港超级富豪的建议，即向中国支付100亿港元，作为交换条件，香港可以在1997年后的十年内进行自我管理，这显然是为了让这些富豪们自己获利，这让纯粹主义者感到困惑。

在北京，人们越来越怀疑新华社社长已经屈服于资本主义的诱惑。

 

Yet there were clouds over his political judgement. Xu confounded the purists by relaying to Deng Xiaoping a proposal by a group of super-rich Hong Kong figures to pay HK$10 billion to China in exchange for which the city could govern itself for ten years after 1997, a period these worthies clearly meant to be profitable for themselves. Suspicions grew in Beijing that the director of the NCNA had succumbed to the temptations of capitalism.

 

1989年春天，许家屯曾建议领导层，和平解决大规模抗议活动符合中国和香港的最佳利益，但他和他在改革者中的赞助人被事件扫地出门。

在六四之后，当他的员工参加抗议活动时，他视而不见，也没有惩罚参加死者纪念活动的人。

到了秋天，许家屯的时间已经不多了。

党组织任命中英会谈的老将周南接替他的位置，周南性格沉郁，不善言辞。

然后，党面临着一个两难的局面，因为许家屯拒绝离开，认为如果他离开，香港的股票市场会下跌。

 

In the spring of 1989, Xu had advised the leadership that a peaceful solution to the mass protests was in the best interests of both China and Hong Kong, but he and his patrons among the reformers were swept aside by events. In the aftermath of June Fourth he had turned a blind eye when his staff joined the protests and did not punish anyone for attending memorials to the dead. By the autumn, Xu was on borrowed time. The party appointed the dour and implacable Zhou Nan, its veteran of the Sino-British talks, to replace him. Then it faced a dilemma because Xu refused to leave, arguing that the Hong Kong stock market would fall if he did.

 

党组织命令周南飞往香港。

两位干部进行了一次尴尬的会面，许家屯拒绝了住在南京的大房子里并有专车供他使用的诱惑。

他说他想住在深圳，靠近香港事务。

周南勉强同意了，两人出现在一个告别酒会上，脸上挂着蜡黄色的笑容。

他们的客人中包括英国总督。

对在场的人来说，很明显有些不对劲，因为这两位主人显然不在彼此的谈话范围内。

许家屯去了深圳。

在出发前，他交回了他的官方护照，并告诉香港的外交部签证处给他发一本普通护照，说他有一个 "特殊任务 "要完成。

 

The party ordered Zhou Nan to fly to Hong Kong. The two cadres had an awkward meeting at which Xu declined blandishments to live in a grand house in Nanjing with a chauffeured car at his disposal. He said he wanted to live in Shenzhen to be near Hong Kong affairs. Zhou grudgingly agreed and the duo appeared, faces fixed in waxen smiles, at a farewell drinks reception. Among their guests was the British governor. It was evident to those present that something was wrong because the two hosts were clearly not on speaking terms with one another. Xu went off to Shenzhen. Before departing, he handed back his official passport and told the Ministry of Foreign Affairs visa office in Hong Kong to issue him with an ordinary passport, saying he had a ‘special mission’ to fulfil.

 

1990年4月30日，许家屯离开深圳的新华大厦，像往常一样去散步。

他的一位家人也加入了他的行列。

这对夫妇前往罗湖边境点，在没有受到质疑的情况下进入了香港。

许家屯没有携带行李箱。

他戴着一顶高尔夫球帽，把脸拉下来，这样旅客就不会发现香港最容易识别的面孔之一。

然后他登上了一列本地火车。

他只坐了一站就到了位于新界农村的圣水站，然后沿着铁轨走了大约一百米。

香港一位亲共编辑的儿子金建一是许的老朋友之一，他在那里坐车等他。

金建一后来告诉《纽约时报》，他帮助策划了这次逃跑。

 

On 30 April 1990, Xu left the Xinhua building in Shenzhen for his usual evening walk. He was joined by a member of his family. The pair headed for the Lo Wu border point and crossed into Hong Kong unchallenged. Xu did not carry a suitcase. He wore a golf cap pulled down over his face so that travellers might not spot one of the most recognisable faces in the territory. Then he boarded a local train. Xu rode only one stop to the station at Sheng Shui in the rural New Territories and walked about a hundred metres along the tracks. Kam Kin-yat, the son of a pro-Communist editor in Hong Kong who was one of Xu’s old friends, was waiting there for him in a car. Kam later told the New York Times that he helped to plan the escape.

 

在逃亡过程中，时间就是一切。

许家屯没有早一分钟逃走。

当天晚上，北京向深圳的新华社办公室发出命令，没收他的护照。

当时，许家屯已经躲在英国殖民地的某个地方。

他给邓小平写了一封信，发誓不会泄露任何党的机密，并要求作为交换，他的家人应免于惩罚。

金建一将这封信寄给了新华社驻香港办事处。

很快，美国领事馆就给他签发了签证。

不久之后，启德机场一名眼尖的移民官员发现许家屯登上了飞往美国的航班，并向香港政府安全部门报告了他的离开。

这一消息使人们对中国的威信受到的打击感到惊讶和满意。

一位英国高级官员将此比作西方大使投奔俄国人。

 

In escapes, timing is all. Xu did not flee a minute too soon. That night an order came from Beijing to the Xinhua office in Shenzhen to confiscate his passport. By then Xu was in hiding somewhere in the British colony. He wrote a letter to Deng Xiaoping vowing that he would not reveal any party secrets and asked that in exchange his family should be spared punishment. Kam posted the letter to the NCNA office in Hong Kong. In short order the United States Consulate issued him a visa. Not long afterwards, a sharp-eyed immigration officer at Kai Tak airport spotted Xu boarding a flight to the US and reported his departure to the Hong Kong government security branch. The news caused a mixture of astonishment and satisfaction at the blow to Chinese prestige. One high-ranking British official compared it to a Western ambassador defecting to the Russians.

留给可靠的周南在他自己的回忆录中谴责许家屯，他的回忆录将这位流亡者描绘成一个好色、腐败的二流子，不太讨人喜欢。

据周南说，他的前任在到达香港后不久就 "屈服于对物质利益的崇拜"。

他说服中国总理赵紫阳提供1亿美元，成立一家贸易公司，而许的亲信和亲戚都在该公司中分享掠夺的利益。

据周南称，该公司正式破产，他说许的上司在北京召集他开了一个 "自我批评 "会议，但没有采取进一步行动。

 

It was left to the reliable Zhou Nan to condemn Xu in his own memoirs, which painted a less flattering picture of the exile as a womanising, corrupt dilettante. According to Zhou, his predecessor had ‘succumbed to the worship of material gain’ soon after his arrival in Hong Kong. He had persuaded the Chinese premier, Zhao Ziyang, to provide US$100 million to set up a trading company which Xu packed with cronies and relatives to share in the plunder. It duly went bankrupt, alleged Zhou Nan, who said that Xu’s masters in Beijing had called him in for a ‘self-criticism’ meeting but took no further action.

 

至于许的政治灵活性被视为一种美德，对于像周南这样强硬的共产党人来说，这只是犹豫不决和软弱。

20世纪80年代，在广东沿海的大亚湾建造核电站的计划引发了一场争论，激起了焦虑的香港人的请愿反对。

许向北京转达了他们的抗议，但却被邓小平本人狠狠地打了一巴掌，他粗暴地要求知道，如果他收到反对归还香港或澳门的请愿书，许会提出什么建议。

当1989年的抗议活动爆发时，周和他的同志们认为新华社主任在自己的干部中播下了混乱的种子，而不是遵循党的路线。

港澳办副主任李厚指责他 "个人独断专行，与外国人谈话，未经授权行事，在队伍中煽动情绪，提拔亲信，惩罚忠诚的干部"。

 

As for the political flexibility Xu saw as a virtue, to hardline Communists like Zhou Nan it was mere dithering and weakness. In the 1980s a controversy had broken out over plans to build a nuclear power plant at Daya Bay on the coast of Guangdong, provoking a petition against it by anxious Hong Kongers. Xu relayed their protests to Beijing, only to be slapped down by Deng Xiaoping himself, who brusquely demanded to know what Xu would recommend if he got a petition against the return of Hong Kong or Macau. When the 1989 protests broke out, Zhou and his comrades felt the NCNA director had sown confusion among his own cadres instead of following the party line. Li Hou, deputy director of the Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office, damned him for ‘arbitrary personal decisions, talking to foreigners, acting without authorisation, stoking emotions in the ranks, promoting cronies and punishing loyal cadres’.

 

因此，中国方面的说法是，许家屯因腐败而被调离香港，与持不同政见者打交道，以模糊其罪行的界限，当他逃跑时，正准备被一个特别调查小组逮捕。

周南--他自己也不是个好色之徒--讥讽地将许从深圳出逃视为抛弃妻子并与情妇私奔的一种方式，声称他将妻子和他们的行李送上了去南京的火车，并向她保证他将在一两天内回来。

'但在那之后，'周的结论是铿锵有力的，'他当晚就带着他的小妾跑了，他被西方反华势力收买去了洛杉矶，在那里他出卖了国家机密，背叛了党和人民。

无论这些丑闻指控的真实性如何，1991年，根据政治局的命令，许家屯被开除出党，香港事务则由廉洁的周南负责。

 

Thus the story from the Chinese side was that Xu had been removed from Hong Kong for corruption, had dallied with dissidence in order to blur the boundaries of his crimes and was on the point of being arrested by a special investigative team when he fled. Zhou Nan – no mean womaniser himself – sneeringly dismissed Xu’s flight from Shenzhen as a way to dump his wife and run away with his mistress, claiming that he had put his wife on a train to Nanjing with their luggage and assured her he would be back in a day or two. ‘But after that,’ Zhou concluded resoundingly, ‘he ran away with his concubine that very night, he was paid by Western anti-China forces to go to Los Angeles, where he sold state secrets and betrayed the party and the people.’ Whatever the truth of these scandalous allegations, Xu was expelled from the party on the orders of the Politburo in 1991 and Hong Kong affairs were left in the hands of the incorruptible Zhou Nan.

 

在流亡期间，许家屯写了他的回忆录，内容丰富，但没有启示性，他住在洛杉矶，2016年，在遭受肾衰竭和心脏问题后，他在医院去世，享年100岁。

在他自己看来，他仍然是一个爱国者和共产主义者，捍卫党的独裁统治，并警告说民主不是中国的答案。

他可能遵守了对邓小平的誓言，因为他的任何秘密都没有越过香港英国总督的桌子。

 

In exile, Xu wrote his memoirs, which were informative but not revelatory, and lived in Los Angeles, where he died in hospital at the age of 100 in 2016 after suffering kidney failure and cardiac problems. In his own eyes he remained a patriot and a Communist, defending the party’s dictatorship and warning that democracy was not the answer for China. He may have kept his vow to Deng, for none of his secrets ever crossed the desk of the British governor of Hong Kong.