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MI and Britain
another look at the balance sheet
THE
THE value of our reserves, our status under the EEC Generalised Preference Scheme, and the outcome of several important sets of international
including the GATT, the IMF, and the LTA on textiles
negotiations
at present under consideration.
All these affect Hong Kong pro- foundly. And all are bound up with Hong Kong's relationship with Britain.
Two months ago, we attempted to answer the question 'what is the value of Hong Kong to Britain?'
The article, predictably, called forth a response OK, if that's the value of Hong Kong to Britain - what then is the value of Britain to Hong Kong?'
To attempt an answer in a Bulletin article is perhaps foolhardy. The research required to do the subject justice would take months and fill a book.
In our last issue, we wrote of the American influence in Hong Kong. This was comparatively easy since the USA is, as it were, a third party to the relationship between the UK and Hong Kong. To do the same for British influences is well nigh an im- possibility, since they are too well ingrained so deeply ingrained that it is often hard to isolate strands, to attribute them to this or that or even to see them clearly. Accord- ingly, the greater part of what should go into this article is left unsaid.
We prefer to look at only a few specific, isolated topics, specific examples of the ways Hong Kong has benefitted from the British connection. In this issue we look specifically at trade and at industrial and commercial investment. Next month we shall turn
are
to aspects of the financial link; the role of the UK as Hong Kong's 'negotiator'; and some of the more in- tangible 'fringe benefits'.
Particularly do we wish to avoid discussion of political realities, but it is difficult to do so entirely, since they are part of what we have called the ingrained strands. However, to sum up these as concisely as possible, and at the same time to preserve ob- jectivity, we turn to an outsider for our summary.
An American, A. Rabushka, Asso- ciate Professor of Political Science at the University of Rochester recently published a study of Hong Kong that was based on considerable research and was received here with great interest. Here, with no attempt at comment are Rabushka's words of in- troduction:-
'Hong Kong remains a colonial political entity, a legal condition that applies each year to a decreasing num- ber of societies.
'Accordingly, an investigation into the economic system of Hong Kong and the role that the Hong Kong gov- ernment plays directly and indirectly in it must recognise the fact of colonial status; the colonial officials who govern Hong Kong are relatively free from the familiar demands and interests put forth by politically active citizens in independent states.
'One purpose of this study is to out- line the features of the 20th Century's
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