DRAFT
"A quarrel between Hong Kong and Canton is like a quarrel
between the mouth and the belly. If they fight, the whole
body suffers". Thus General Li Chai-sum, Governor of Canton
Province, half a century ago. The General was a sensible
man, and his point is still valid.
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But today, the first priority is that neither we nor the
Chinese should look backwards. The negotiations are about
the future of the Colony, not the past. I would respectfully
suggest, for example, that Peking might worry more about
today's HK Dollar, and less about yesterday's treaties.
does no-one any good to talk (or rather shout) down the
dollar, or to hold Britain up as ravenous neo-colonials.
It
The second point to be clear-eyed about the economic
interests of each party. These are not quite what they seem.
We should go a little easy on the argument that Hong Kong
is indispensable to China, for two reasons.
The first is that China would not lose all her income if
she were rash enough to try to run Hong Kong herself. The
figure of 40% of her foreign exchange is tossed about. But
much of this comes from re-exports and would continue to flow
to China, even in the worst case. The meal you eat in a
Chinese restaurant here will put foreign exchange into
Peking's pocket who ever governs Hong Kong, because many
1.