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The Sights and the Sounds: Bernard Fong's Wednesday Column in the Standard concentrated on investments by local real estate developers in overseas projects, saying that much "beloved" landlords would head the queue after, during or just before the fateful year (1997) arrived; they were anxiously waiting for the signal to pull out entirely once they had exhausted all earning potential in HK. The article also mentioned "earnest overseas students", most of whom would head home once their studying was done, unafraid by the prospects, or lack of them, of looming 1997. It also asked was Honduras more secure and stable than a HK under Chinese sovereignty which was becoming more capitalistic with each passing year?
Letters: Mr. Kwan Lai-hung, writing about the recent speech by Mr. Henry Litton, said he was right in pointing out that our English-based legal system had guaranteed the city's stability and prosperity during the past 30 years and that the legal system was an integral part of the system of government in HK. But when he portended radical changes in HK's political set-up and legal system, he must either have been scared out of his wits by the 1997 question or have been too sensitive to the possible legal implications of a would-be takeover. Mr. Litton might have been well-intentioned, but instead of putting people's minds at ease he had caused unwarranted concern and alarm. Mr. Kwan said one thing was certain: the fact that the English-based law of HK was incompatible with that of China would definitely not put the Chinese leaders off from asserting (or re-asserting) authority over HK, if such was their state's decided and declared policy.
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On the same subject, Robert Lord wrote to the SCMP on 28 April saying "if only we had much more of this kind of basic talk from more of HK's leading people." He said unless HK was granted a further "lease" under existing rule, and this at the moment did not seem one of the more likely outcomes of the London/Beijing "talks", then things were bound to change, and in far from predictable ways. The Chinese Government might not want this change, any more than the HK and British governments, but without the continuation of English-based law in HK, things would not be able to stay anything like what they were at present.
"Observer" wrote in the SCMP on 29 April about the "brilliant analysis" of 1997 by T.L. Tsim in the paper recently; he answered many questions, but right at the end left some unanswered. How was power gradually to be transferred from the largely British Government to the people of HK when it was quite clear that China would not welcome free elections to choose a post-1997 HK Government? "Observer" asked, would it not therefore be a great psychological boost to the negotiations about HK's future if Britain declared now its intention to appoint an ethnically Chinese citizen as the next Governor of HK? It seemed clear to "Observer”, after reading Mr. Tsim's lecture, that there was at least one member of the Chinese community here with the necessary political and psychological understanding of the most important issue facing HK to act as governor, given the back-up administrative and diplomatic skills already in the Government.
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