Excellent Star

Found objects, mixed media collage, wooden frame, 46.8 x 39.8 x 4 cm, 2023

On July 29, 1982, Margaret Thatcher wrote her note “Excellent” on the report of Lord MacLehose and Sir E. Youde’s lunch meeting with the Chinese Ambassador Mr Liang Geng. While Mr Liang reiterated China’s idea to have Hong Kong returned to Chinese sovereignty for the “unequal” treaties, the British diplomats expressed the difficulties in maintaining its legal basis in the UK parliament. (The National Archives, HONG KONG: Future of Hong Kong, Part 1, PREM 79/798.) In 1982, the British new wave and synth-pop band China Crisis re-released their EP African and White on the independent record label Inevitable, which reached no. 45 in the UK Singles Chart, and Walt Disney has opened its new China Pavilion in its EPCOT Center in Florida. China Youth was first published in 1923 by the Communist Party of China as the most influential and mainstream “Red’ magazine. In the 1982 December issue, its editorial reiterated, “The focus of the party’s work has shifted to economic construction. The party’s line, principles, and policies have changed, and many new situations have emerged that were unimaginable.”