布政司署
香港下亞舉道
木署檔號
R REF
來兩檔號 Your ReF·
COPASENTIAL
Hick
KOLOVED IN REGISTRY NO.
2 6 OCT 1979
RC Samuel Esq
Far Eastern Department F C 0
INDEX
SK OFFICLA
GOVERNMENT SECRETARIAT
LOWER ALBERT ROAD
HỒNG KONG
19 October, 1979
كالا
Iqtober,
24/1
:: _: Mr Quartais 0225/40
He links 24x
PA.
LOCAL REACTIONS TO HUA'S REMARKS ABOUT HONG KONG
As you can imagine, Hua Guofeng's remarks about
Akk med Hong Kong during his Peking press conference in Peking on
2/3
7 October (Peking telno 879 of 9 October) attracted a grear deal of attention here.
2.
The general view of the non-Communist press was that Hua's statement was encouraging, but not a major change from Deng's assurances to investors which the Governor had passed on after his return from Peking in April. Some papers throught it significant that these remarks should be made on the record by Hua, as Prime Minister, well as indirectly by Deng. The stock market gave no discernible reaction to the assurance about investment. Indeed it dropped slightly during the week, but this was in reaction to other local and international factors. Overall I think the general Hong Kong eaction would be described
one of cautious satisfaction.
3.
as
The two major Communist papers, Da Gong Bao and Wen Hui Bao, both published brief commentaries on the press conference. The former said that Hua's remarks on Hong Kong were an advance on anything which had been said officially in the past. In explaining this point, however, the commentary went no further than repeating the essence of what Hua said and adding that: "These remarks will have a definite effect on the long term development of Hong Kong". Wen Hui Ban, which is marginally less official, commented at greater length, saying that liong Kong had a "very distinguished role in China's modernisation programme and was "becoming more and more important in the eyes of China's decision makers". The commentary went on: "What is advantageous to Hong Kong's economy is also advantageous to China's modernisation programme ...
..the continuous inflow of capital to Hong Kong_7 is beneficial to both British and Chinese".
!!
/contd......
CONFIDENTIAL