NINE year old Chung Yeuk lam lived in Hong Kong from the time she was three months old. She went to school there, made friends, and grew up as a typical Hong Kong kid with fringe and black hair down to her shoulders.
On Tuesday immigration officials raided her home and hand cuffed her. Wearing tartan dress and T shirt, black shoes and white ankle socks, she was led away sobbing and deported across the border into China.
She has become the symbol of the plight of thousands of Chinese children caught up in an immigration crisis stemming from the final days of British colonial power, which could provide a major test of how China deals with legal and moral rights after it takes back Hong Kong.
There were no expressions of outrage at the treatment of Chung Yeuklam, either from the out going or incoming administrations in Hong Kong.
With the British handover to China just two months away, both British and Chinese officials have decided that the harsh treatment of the nine year old was justified to discourage an expected surge of illegal immigration by thousands of Chinese children whose parents want them to grow up in Hong Kong.
The irony is that on July 1st, when the red flag of communist China replaces the Union Jack in Hong Kong, Cheung Yeuklam would have become a legal resident.
The girl's father, Chung Man kwan, lived in Hong Kong when she was born, and her mother in China. Under the Basic Law which China will introduce in the territory on July 1st, all children with one Hong Kong parent are automatically entitled to reside in what will become known as the Special Administrative Region.
British officials estimate there are 80,000 such children waiting across the border to join a parent in Hong Kong. Privately a senior civil servant said it could be three times that. Chinese officials in Guangdong province told The Irish Times that 50,000 to 60,900 people in Guangdong province alone were waiting for permission to cross the border.
Cheung Yeuk-lam, now living at her grandmother's home in Haifeng in Guangdong province, was smuggled with her mother into the territory in 1988. She was discovered in 1995 and began a long, widely publicised and ultimately futile legal battle.
The Governor of Hong Kong, Mr Chris Patten, refused to grant a petition, supported by teachers, to allow her to stay.
Yesterday the governor rejected criticism that the deportation was incompatible with Hong Kong's tradition of civil liberties and the rights of the child. He emphasised that illegal immigrant children must be repatriated to avoid an influx from the mainland before the handover.
The parents appealed to Hong Kong's chief executive designate, Mr Tung Cheehwa, to help. But he said that such children would be allowed to come to the territory only under an orderly arrangement after proving their status.
Before setting out for talks with Chinese officials in Guangdong Province tomorrow on how to cope with the wave of immigrants, Mr Tung warned: "If they sneak into the territory before their status is confirmed they will be sent back."
Chinese officials currently allow 150 people, of whom 60 are aged under 18, to enter Hong Kong each day with one way tickets. This year an estimated 1,500 children were brought in illegally from China by smugglers known as "snake heads", as rumours spread that an amnesty would be given before July 1st.
No amnesty was forthcoming. Giving Chung Yeuk-lam, and 19 other children deported with her, special treatment would send a wrong signal to other parents that it is all right to smuggle their children to Hong Kong," said the colony's chief immigration officer, Mr Leung Ping-kwan.
The issue, however, is one of rights versus expediency, and will be seen by international observers as a major test of China's recognition of Hong Kong legal rights.
Under the Basic Law, no children with one Hong Kong parent can be detained or denied entry by the Hong Kong immigration authorities after July 1st. If the hundreds of illegal immigrant children in the territory many now in hiding are deported after that, there could be multiple legal challenges.
Hong Kong officials, most of whom will serve the new administration in the same roles, say that a huge influx of children would overburden the schools. However, parents have complained bitterly that they were at the mercy of Guangdong officials to obtain proper documentation to get to the Hong Kong border, for which bribes were sometimes demanded.
After July 1st, border controls will remain in Hong Kong,
"For the past few years the Guangdong government has been negotiating for quotas of children going to Hong Kong every day," said Mr Zhang Gaoli, Vice Governor of Guangdong province. "We will be speeding up the rights of these children.