CONFIDENTIAL
9
Local students in UK worry about future: The SCMP of 3 January had a story from London about the attitudes of local students in the UK to the future. It said the
"crisis of confidence" was being felt by concerned young Chinese. It was clear that unlike most of Britain the territory's potential leaders studying abroad were vitally interested in the future of the strategic and financial link between the East and West. There were interviews with members of the Chinese Society of Imperial College, which recently invited Walter Easey to speak about the future of the territory. The Society's president (Benson Tam) said Chinese living away from home felt an urge to return despite uncertainty about the future. Most students felt their immediate future lay in HK. Outside HK they saw the subject of the future in a broader perspective. Mr. Tam mentioned as worries the changeability of Chinese leaders, the country's backwardness and its bureaucracy. Another student, who favoured the stance of the Action Group, said Britain's immigration laws would force most Chinese out eventually. He said most did not know what to expect from a Chinese regime, and most people in HK did not like being ruled by the British a minority group. HK people were used to the luxuries of a capitalist society, so how would they adapt?
Immigration Bill amendments: The SCMP in a leader on 29 December said the steps taken by the Government before Christmas to amend the Immigration Bill were partly a consequence of the new status thrust upon us by the British Government's own Nationality Act, and partly an attempt to lay down our own parameters on citizenship in an age when HK was receiving an increasing influx of people from Vietnam, China and other parts of the world. For neither worries about 1997, nor changes in Britain's nationality laws, had discouraged people from seeking citizenship; not only did it entitle them to a more useful and widely recognised travel document than a Certificate of Identity, but could eventually help them in their quest for emigration to other parts of the world.
Catholics to stay after 1997: The director of the HK Catholic Social Communications Office said the Roman Catholic Church would definitely stay in HK regardless of what happened after 1997. The existence of the Church was not bound by political environs and existed in countries of all political systems: 1997 would not make the Church shelve its commitments or cut back on its budgetary spending.
9.
U.K. MEDIA:
There were only two items of minor interest. Graham Earnshaw in the Daily Telegraph referred to correspondence in HK papers about the future. He said almost no one advocated a Chinese take-over; if they had the choice HK people would like things to remain as they were, though most realised that that was impossible. BBC Radio on 30 December had an item on HK which referred to the resentment caused by the Nationality Act. Anthony Lawrence stated that the vast majority of people in HK wouldn't want to go to Britain. They would stay on here and take what came.
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CONFIDENTIAL