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7.
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the External Trade Centre Hotel was about as close as
Chinese hotels get to international standards. The airport has
not been upgraded (but should be under the seventh five year
plan), and can take nothing larger than a 737. Check-in is
chaotic.
General. Fujian is a run down province with poor
access to the outside world and to the rest of China. It is
trying to modernize quickly, and has no inhibitions about using its strong overseas Chinese connexions. External trade has
tripled since 1980. Hong Kong is the main partner. There are
now 840 joint ventures; most interlocutors estimated that Hong
Kong parties were in on well over 70% of these. Consumerism is
much in evidence. The markets in Amoy and Fuzhou are lively.
Western style clothes, tee-shirts with meaningless writing on
them are everywhere. If the wind has turned against such
influences, the people in Fujian have not yet got the message.
Mao was mentioned twice by our guides in each case as part of
a joke. Everyone was relaxed about Taiwan; Quemoy was pointed
out to me with much amusement. I was told incidentally that
direct trade with Taiwan had fallen back somewhat from a high
point in 1985, reason unclear.
8.
Vice Governor Chen Bin Fan. Received us for forty
minutes on 7 March with T.V. cameras in attendance. Asked me
to pass Governor Hu Ping's regards to you and to the Acting Governor. In what was clearly a rehearsed statement, he drew
attention to recent statements by Zhao Ziyang that the "open
door" and "one country, two systems" policies would not be
affected by recent changes. He spoke warmly of Hong Kong's
close links with Fujian, and said that Hong Kong's continued stability and prosperity were essential for Fujian's
development.
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