Hong Kong Nattonality o
760LANUARY 1985
10-
[Mr. Robert Adev]
position". They are not only pessimistic but deeply offensive to the Government of the People's Republic of China. Each time that people comment about the need for the people of Hong Kong to have a "fallback position" that demonstrates implicitly not only our mistrust of the willingness and ability of the parties to the agreement to make it stick, but our mistrust of the motives of the Government of the People's Republic of China.
I echo strongly the words of my right hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool, South. There is no evidence to suggest that the Chinese Government have anything but the strongest desire to ensure that the agreement works. It is vital that the people of Hong Kong receive the message of the House that our first priority is to do everything that we can to ensure that the agreement sticks and works. That is our primary responsibility and it is the best guarantee that we can give to the people of Hong Kong of a secure future in the land of their birth and abode.
The hon. Member for Warley, East (Mr. Faulds) referred to the excellent letter from my old friend Hari Harilela. Page 3 of his letter states:
"Very few ethnic Indian BDTCs would want to leave Hong Kong under the present circumstances."
I am sure that that is true. We are not dealing here with what I might paraphrase as a Bangladeshi immigration- type debate, because we are not dealing with large numbers of people who deliberately want to come to this country to better themselves. I am thus delighted to see my hon.
Friend the Minister of State. Foreign and Commonwealth Office on the Front Bench. This is not a normal immigration debate.
If we were merely talking about numbers I would have no objection to welcoming with open arms large numbers of the citizens of Hong Kong who might wish to come and take up permanent abode in this country. I say that in the light of a rather aggravating and unpleasant conversation on this subject that I had with one of my constituents as recently as last Friday evening. But that is not the proposition that we are discussing. Even to discuss the matter in such terms is to set the debate's context incorrectly.
I hope that we recognise that we have priorities this. evening other than to discuss the position as though it were an ordinary immigration debate.
There is a direct conflict between the ambition to maintain stability in Hong Kong and the demand of people in Hong Kong to have the right to live in the United Kingdom. Fundamental change in Hong Kong was always inevitable. Now it is on the horizon. We must now deal with the obstacles to the maintenance of stability.
I believe that the hon. Member for Warley, East (Mr. Faulds) used the phrase a "few colonial types". There are a "few colonial types" in Hong Kong, deliberately seeking to stir up discontent in Hong Kong, whose ambition is to sow dissent between Britain and China to achieve their rather weird objectives. Such people are not restricted solely to ex-colonial types, as he rather quaintly put it.
In the previous Hong Kong debate I intervened in the speech of the hon. Member for Inverness, Nairn and Lochaber (Sir R. Johnston) and mentioned the lovely lady, Miss Emily Lau, who shelters behind the comfort of a British passport through her husband to make a series of innuendos from her position as a journalist on the Far East
Leemanne Kovrest
JLOVICO & ViaNssic ex muple of the misuse of a journalist's position, not to report news but to put forward one's own political views
We in this House have an obligation to point out to the people of Hong Kong that there are some people - few
who for their own political motivations want the agreement to fail. It is essential that we point out who they are and what they are doing.
I do not care whether the editor of the Far East Economic Review, who refused to publish my letter when I wrote to him, proceeds to attack me in his column about a letter that he has not published. People in the far east last week said to me, "What on earth was Derek Davies going on about attacking you in his article?" Not surprisingly, Mr. Davies had forgotten that if he refused to publish my letter and then attacked me, for what I said in it the people who read his magazine might be a little confused. I can take his criticism lightly. I am amused at being accused of McCarthyite tactics and such allegations, but Mr. Davies is not worth wasting time on and I do not propose
to do so.
I intervened in the speech of my hon. and learned Friend to ask about the position of the non-Chinese ethnic minorities in so far as they face the possibility of citizenship of the People's Republic of China. It would be unfair in the short time available to read the question that I posed to and the answer that I received yesterday from my hon. Friend the Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office. I refer all hon. Members to it.
First, it is wrong to assume that the ethnic minorities would be stateless. I reject that proposition which was put forward by the hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr. Ashdown) and others. Secondly, it is wrong to assume that their only alternative to staying in Hong Kong is citizenship of and the right of abode in this country. The People's Republic of China is reacquiring Hong Kong. It is to it that the British people and Parliament properly have turned and should continue to turn to see what alternative citizenship might be available to those people.
When my hon. and learned Friend is winding up this debate I should like to hear him say that, as events unfold in the months and years ahead, this option will be pursued with the Chinese Government, and that information on it will be made available regularly and openly to the people in Hong Kong who might be involved. I asked my hon. and learned Friend about that before. It would do great credit to the Government of the People's Republic of China if they opened their minds very broadly to the fact that non-Chinese might want to be entitled to citizenship of the People's Republic after this agreement comes into force.
Our responsibility is clear, and it is not just a responsibility to the rich and powerful people in Hong Kong, many of whom already have the right of access to the United Kingdom. We have a responsibility to the millions of Hong Kong citizes who have neither the desire nor the intention ever to come within thousands of miles of the United Kingdom. If they are to have a secure future, they have one overriding priority, and that is to see that the agreement between our two Governments works and that nothing is said or done that so aggravates and annoys either of the parties to the agreement that there might be a wish to wonder whether it is all worthwhile. agree with my right hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool, South that the British-Chinese agreement is a
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