Gwynne Dyer
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Did future of Hong Kong decide fate of the Falklands?
Once the shooting in the Falklands is over, the inquest begins in Britain into who was responsible for this terly unnecessary conflict. Not who committed the initial aggression but who in Britain let things slide until Buenos Aires could no longer resist the temptation to attack.
Argentina's actions in the circumstances were as predictable as those of the wolf that attacked Little Red Riding Hood. No, the inquiry is to discover who allived Little Red Riding Hood to go walking alone in the woods in the first place. Which brings us to the
Chinese connection.'
Believes settlement delayed
MR. WALTER EASEY, who runs the London-based Hong Kong Research Project, does not love the British Foreign Oflice, nor does he trust it. Mr. Easey believes that the Foreign Office deliberately delayed a settle- ment of the Falklands dispute with Argentina, until it finally turned into a crisis, because it was obsessed by the possible effects of a settlement in Hong Kong. He may well be right.
The Foreign Office was well aware of Argentine ati- tudes on the Falklands issue, and understood the dynamics of military politics in Argentina. It knew an invasion was possible someday. That is why it spent a dozen years negotiating with Argentina before the invasion, with the clear intention of handing the islands over as soon as some way could be found to make the uresome inhabitants stop insisting on their right to stay British.
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So why, during all those years of negotiation, did the Foreign Office not simply say to the Falklanders at sonie point: Sorry, but we're leaving. If you really cannot stand to be Argentines, you can come and live in Britain. We'll even pay your fare and give you a resett- lement grant.“
Why instead did the Foreign Office stall interminably in the negotiations with Argentina, until finally the mil- itary junta committed the supreme folly of invading the islands? Enter the Honie Office, accompanied by {
6 million Chinese.
Among Britain's remaining overseas territories, it has been particularly anxious to get rid of the Falk- lands, Gibraltar and Hong Kong, in each case because they are claimed by a powerful neighbor against whom defense would be costly. Moreover, the Falklands and Gibraltar are economically valueless to Britain, and would be just as useful strategically to the West in the hands of Argentina and Spain.
Populous and prosperous Hong Kong probably earns $3 billion a year for Britain, but a good negotiator could keep most of that while relinquishing political control to China and besides, the lease is up anyway in 1997. So hand the territories over to the claimants after negotiating the best terms you can, and get out.
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As for the people who live there: Well, all 1,800 Falk- landers, and for that matter all 27,000 Gibraltarians, can come to Britain, and nobody would even notice their arrival. But 6 million Hong Kong Chinese?
They certainly do not want to be reunited with their
totalitarian, poverty-stricken motherland: Most came to Hong Kong to escape it. About half of them are actually British subjects or more precisely. British (Hong Kong) Dependency Citizens. At the thought of them all taking up residence in Britain when Hong Kong reverted to China, the Home Office had a collec- tive heart attack.
Removing any suspicion that the Hong Kong Chines? might have the right to come to Britain was the main achievement of the British Nationality act 1981. How- ever, since you cannot these days pass a law which says "citizens of British dependencies can come to live in Britain except if they have yellow skin," this meaut that the residents of other British dependencies, like the Falklands, had to lose that right also.
No problem, really. First, make your deal with Pek- ing. Then, after all the British subjects in Hong Kong are safely trapped within the borders of the People's Republic, it will be easy enough to hand over the Falk- lands to Argentina, and bend the law to allow all the Falklanders into Britain.
But you can't do it the other way round. If you settle with Argentina first, and let the Falklanders into Brit- ain, later on all those British subjects in Hong Kong will demand the same treatment.
The evidence that this was actually the Foreign Office's thinking came during the debate on the British Nationality Act in Parliament last year. Enoch Powell, MP, proposed that the few thousand inhabitants of the Falklands, St. Helena and Pitcairn Island be removed
from the Dependency Citizenship category, and granted full British citizenship (with the autoniatic right to live in Britain).
The responsible minister, Mr. Timothy Raison, refused: “If an exception is inade for one or two depen- dent territories it will trigger off desires in the others for an alteration in their status ... We have to look at the ripple effect which would unquestionably take place. This is an important consideration in foreign pal- icy.” Or, in other words, no Chinese need apply.
Diluted Falklanders' rights
THUS THE Foreign Office diluted the British citizen- ship rights of the Falkland Islanders, suggesting to the not very bright generals on the Argentine junta that Britain would not act to protect them even from out- right invasion. And it continued to stall on the negotia- tions with Argentina about sovereignty over the Falk- lands, because Hong Kong's future had to be settled with China first. (The negotiations with Peking have been going on quietly for at least three years now.!
The result was the criminally stupid Argentine inva- sion, which may end up by putting the islands out of Argentine reach for another generation. The Foreign Office is being punished too, however: The Hong Kong Chinese, noting Mrs. Thatcher's robust talk about the wishes of the Falklanders being "paramount," are demanding that the same principle be applied to them.
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