flights from Hong Kong to China, and with British Airways being granted rights to fly into China. China is currently pressing Britain to adopt a strong anti-Taiwan line over the airlines issue, suggesting that China Airways (Taiwan) be barred from Hop Kong as part of a package allowing British Airways to fly to China. When Sir Alex ander Grantham turned down the request for an envoy in the 1950s he argued against the proposal on the grounds that it would mean there would be "two governors for the colony". In April 1973, the (London) Economist claimed that "opinion in Hong Kong strongly favours the proposal".
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Nor it is clear quite what degree of understanding and signalling there has been between London and Peking. On November 2, 1972, at a press conference in Peking, Douglas-Home, asked about the status of Hong Kong, answered: "I think we were both satisfied with the situation".95 Yet at the same press conference he stated that he had discussed with the Chinese Government the question of Chinese im- prisoned in Hong Kong as a result of the 1967 demonstrations. Next day, in Hong Kong, he told another press conference that the future of the colony "was not raised and I do not anticipate that such questions will be raised in the future”. Douglas-Home also said he foresaw "no major developments affecting Hong Kong in the foreseeable future". Twelve days later, the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, Anthony Royle, also in Hong Kong, asked whether the two million or so Hong Kong-born Chinese, who qualify as British subjects, would be allowed into Britain in the event of "a communist takeover", replied: "There is no question of Hong Kong being taken over”.
The subject was, therefore, a hypothetical one, he claimed. Royle further claimed that the Chinese Government was satisfied with the Colony's present status.
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This is hard to believe. China has shown itself to be patient, but there is no way it could be "satisfied" with the conditions which 4 million of its compatriots are obliged to endure in Britain's colonial bastion, nor with the uses which Britian has made of its base in China to wage aggression against the people of Korea, and to assist the USA in its wars throughout Southeast Asia."
Allegations that China is "Satisfied" with British colonialism in China form part of the propaganda of that very colonialism. This line is put forward in various forms, of which the most extreme is that China actually (it is alleged) welcomes Hong Kong's existence as a colony. It is important to face up to this argument and deal with it, since it is an absolutely crucial component in the continued retention of Hong Kong.
The most sophisticated version of this argument was put forward in 1972 in the semi-official British magazine, International Affairs. Here, it was suggested that Hong Kong "may perhaps be regarded as China's Trojan Horse in the American sphere of interest in Asia.' But the more usual argument is just simply that Hong Kong is of economic profit to China.
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It is true that the People's Republic (P.R.C.) has sizeable economic interests in Hong Kong. In 1973 there were 78 branches of P.R.C. or pro-P.R.C. banks operating in the Colony, with about 17% of all deposits in the Colony.100 China has other assets in Hong Kong, including department stores, property, schools and trading offices. Some observers have estimated that around 1972 China was deriving as much as 40-50% of its foreign exchange from Hong Kong either directly or indirectly (i.e., from exports to or via Hong Kong, remittances from Hong Kong, sales in Communist-owned stores, bank-
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