headed by Ho Yin, a prominent Chinese businessman, and delegate to the National People's Congress. Shortly after the April 25th Lisbon coup, he gave an interview to Hong Kong's leading bourgeois weekly, the Far Eastern Economic Review, in which he is quoted as follows: "The Chinese and the Portuguese people are living in harr in Macao whereas the Portuguese and the Africans are constantly in political and armed conflict. What's more, Portugal is too far away to exert any real influence. As long as the Chinese people here are not being suppressed, China will continue its present policy towards this place”. Any forcible takeover, he said, "is abso- lutely unnecessary". Moreover, he went on: "Premier Chou has repeatedly stated that both Macao and Hong Kong are part of China and it will take them back when the right time comes. That could be any time between next year and 10-20 years from now" 103 Since Ho gave this interview, a Portuguese delegation visited Macau and announced that Portugal would hold a referendum in the colony. At the time of writing it is not known what China's reaction to this will be.
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One of Hong Kong's main activities for the past 25 years has been “China-watch- ing". It needs pointing out that discussion of Hong Kong's future in terms of out- side speculation about China's intentions is itself a form of China-watching and does not come to grips with the real issue, which is British colonialism and the continued seizure of part of China by Britain. The Chinese have correctly opposed others' interfering in their internal affairs. But one of the key phrases in repeated Chinese statements about Hong Kong is that the issue will be settled "when condi- tions are ripe". Nothing in China's position indicates that it would not welcome action by the British people to terminate Britain's aggression against China. On the contrary, the People's Daily article of 20 August 1967 states explicitly that Britain is involved when it calls on Britain to pay its debt to the Chinese people. The upshot of most speculation about China's intentions is to try to shift the burden of responsibility for Hong Kong from the shoulders of the British people to those of the Chinese people. But this is like saying that a man who has climbed 99 high mountains should therefore climb the one hundredth while the man who has stayed in his armchair all the time need not even get up to open the door. 105 Hong Kong is part of China, but the British people are responsible for British colonial- ism. There is no reason to think that Peking would not respond favourably to moves by the British people to terminate British colonialism in Hong Kong and restore Hong Kong to China. But even if this were not the case, it would not exonerate the British people and the British state from putting an end to the present unjust régime, which so cruelly exploits the Chinese masses and deprives them of so many elementary democratic and social rights. No people which so oppresses another can itself be free.
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