TAIPEI, Taiwan — Outside the British Consulate in Hong Kong this week, bouquets and handwritten tributes piled up as a long line of people waited in sweltering heat to pay their final respects to Queen Elizabeth II.
In the onetime British colony, the death of a monarch who served as a living link to Britain’s globe-spanning empire marked a complicated historical moment.
The colonial era that ended a quarter-century ago in Hong Kong was characterized by racism, injustice and corruption. But for many, Elizabeth’s death last week at 96 was also a reminder of the heavy Beijing hand that has supplanted British rule.
