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V CH16(2 ANNEX
ཏཾ བཞི ;
Press Review
(October)
£8
ANLISIDAY NI MSAIDI
HKK04012
The bulk of the articles about Hong Kong's Future in the European press in October were pegged to events on the financial markets, but there were also a certain number of general background pieces in conjunction with the latest rounds.
of talks.
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The Kölner Stadtanzeiger's correspondent in Peking wrote a long feature headlined "Anyone with anything to lose is already queuing for new passports". After giving the general background, the author points out that there are a number of questions which the Chinese attempts at reassurance leave unanswered: what will happen in 1997 to the Chinese who fled to Hong Kong from the Communists, to those who have spoken up in support of Taiwan, or worked with the colonial administration or with the Americans? Will press freedom be maintained? Will Hong Kong people continue to be able to travel abroad? Who will decide cultural policy? Will the foreigners have to leave? Will the currency remain convertible? With these questions unanswered, the consulates in Hong Kong are, according to the articles, swamped with applications for visas. Anyone who can afford it is preparing for the posibility of leaving and obtaining passports from currency hungry states such as Dominica and Fiji. Capital outflows are on the increase. The author believes that if the economic situation deteriorates further, the social situation could worsen and China might step in sooner than 1997, "particularly if the calls in Hong Kong for self-determination get louder. A new East Asian drama would then result".
Manfred Neuber in the leading right-of-centre daily, Die Welt took a slightly more positive approach in a piece entitled: "Peking to kill the goose that lays the golden eggs? If reason triumphs, Hong Kong will continue to flourish under a Chinese regime". He states that, although there are those who see things in a dramatic light, diplomatic observers and German businessmen, who are not subject to the same emotional stress as the British, take a sanguine view of the future. The problem is not what will happen to the economy, but what will happen to basic freedoms. The secret hope lies in the fact that Hong Kong is a test case for Taiwan.
The Tokyo correspondent of the Süddeutsche Zeitung in Munich reported that Hu Yao-bang had used recent talks with Japanese Socialist leader, (Ishibashi, to give a "completely surprising and for the first time very comprehensive statement of guarantee for Japanese investments in Hong Kong and Taiwan". He believes that the Chinese may regard Japanese investment as a possible means of offsetting the capital outflow from Hong Kong
an offer to the Japanese to be a silent partner in the negotiations on Hong Kong's future.
In a 2,000 word feature in the Süddeutsche Zeitung, Karl Kränzle could not resist some predictable clichés and the contention that the living conditions in the housing on the road in from the airport are worse than any remaining in China. But his general thesis was that the Hong Kong Chinese community wants to maintain the status quo. "A referendum would embarrass Peking: at stake in Hong Kong is continued economic prosperity and personal freedom under Chinese rule" was the headline.
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