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Ta Kung Pao also published a letter allegedly from a reader who said Britain should abrogate the three unequal treaties and return sovereignty over HK to China. He also called on people to have faith in the self-administration formula.
5.
PUBLIC OPINION:
In its February issue, Cheng Ming published the results of an opinion poll conducted among 911 post-secondary students of the three Colleges of Education, the Technical Teachers Training College and the Chinese University's College of Education which showed that 46% of the respondents wanted maintenance of the status quo and 31% favoured HK becoming a free city under international protection. Response to another query showed that 35% felt HK's future should be decided by local residents, Britain and China; another 17% opted for a combination of Britain, the HK Government and China. In reply to another question, 60% considered that the NT lease was unequal, but China could handle the lease issue according to the treaty.
On Saturday the Oriental Daily News reported that District offices had been instructed to collect residents' views on the future and to submit a weekly report.
6.
HK'S PRESS FREEDOM TO STAY:
Only the Standard carried a report on 4 February of remarks made by the deputy director of the State Council's Overseas Chinese Affairs Office, Mr. Lin Xuede, about continuing press freedom in HK after China regained sovereignty in 1997. The Standard report was based on a New York despatch in Pai Shing which quoted Mr. Lin saying during an interview with a local Chinese-language paper that press freedom would not be tampered with; all magazines and newspapers, regardless of their political stand, could continue their operations. Mr. Lin, who according to the Standard is also chief of the China News Service, said magazines like Cheng Ming and Seventies, which were very critical of China, and Kuomintang 'mouth-pieces' such as the HK Times, could continue_publishing. HK papers and magazines would not be nationalised. He also said HK and Taiwan could become special administrative zones under a new constitution; and HK could not keep British troops, but Taiwan would be allowed to have its own army.
7.
TA KUNG PAO WEEKLY SUPPLEMENT:
This week's Supplement carried and outline of the article by Ding Mingnan attacking the three treaties. In an editorial entitled 'Opium War revisited', the Supplement said, to cover up the stink of opium, contemporary British historians in that era called the Opium War the Sino-British War and even tried to argue that the cause of the war had little to do with opium, but was only an attempt to open up the doors tightly shut by the Manchu Court to foreign trade, as if imperialism had the right to batter the doors of any country down for trade. The editorial also pointed out that the British did not really stick to the Treaty of Nanking; 12 years after it was signed they demanded a revision to expand their privileges in China. The paper also carried a report of the interview with the chairman of Sun Hung Kai Securities, Mr. Fung King-hei, during which he said the company would continue to expand its business in HK as an expression of its confidence.
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