JEUNET AND PERSONAL
not demand assistance from the state. He does not want an egalitarian society - he wants to be rich. But this is speculation.
What I believe is more certain is that when we come to increase the tax base in Hong Kong, we shall hear only the protests of those who are paying more tax or paying tax for the first time. There will be no corresponding support from those who might expect to benefit. The result, I am sure, is that any legislative council in Hong Kong, no matter how representative of the lower strata, will respond to the opposition and be negative to fiscal reform, and thus by implication to social and economic reform.
Thus constitutional change of this kind will make economic and social reform more difficult, because it will be visibly opposed not just by the fat cats, whom we might reasonably override, but by a much larger range of the Hong Kong society.
If I am right we have a choice between constitutional reform on the one hand and economic and social reform on the other. Which should we choose? Our decision should be related to our ultimate intentions on llong Kong. If these are, as I think they must be, eventually to disengage with the minimum of difficulty then we should choose the course most helpful to this purpose.
We spoke at the meeting yesterday of the dangers of alienating Hong Kong in such a way as to produce a u.d.i. situation. What are these dangers? Surely not from the expatriots or rich Chinese: these are no "settlers". The Europeans are almost totally transient in the shorter or longer term. The rich Chinese all have bolt-holes elsewhere in the world. Both know the realities of the situation: China will never permit an independent Hong Kong to exist.
DEANER
2
Nor, surely