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1866
HONG KONG LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL 13 July 1988
challenge of how to export our economic achievements. If we can do that, and thereby help to reduce the gap between the two systems, we shall be all right irrespective of the perfection or the imperfection of the Basic Law. Now that challenge will obviously not be met if we continue to face widespread emigration of our best and brightest. It will also not be met if we go on arguing amongst ourselves about the choice of methods to insulate Hong Kong and its life-style from the rest of China, or about what might be the most ideal political models to adopt for our future existence.
Without wishing to denigrate their very hard work and their dedication, my strongest criticism of the Hong Kong contingent of the Basic Law drafters, and of the various local political groupings is that they have so far failed in reaching a compromise as to what should be the most efficient government structure for Hong Kong. And what should be one of the most essential elements of a Basic Law has thus remained only a set of largely contradictory options. As a result. the Chinese authorities will be forced into making the final choice for us, despite their obvious willingness to listen to and accommodate local preferences. This, Sir, in my mind, is the real tragedy of Hong Kong's political inexperience.
It is equally regrettable that many-if not most—of the comments on the first draft consist in just highlighting the 'flaws": be they drafting errors or omissions, the confusion between legal norms and policy guidelines, unresolved technical issues like nationality and the use of English or the strengthening of the Bill of Rights, or unfavourable comparisons with the Joint Declaration or other constitutional documents elsewhere. Few serious commentators have so far stressed the acceptable parts of the draft or have addressed themselves positively and unemotionally to the unresolved issues. In one word, imagination has been in relatively short supply, with everybody simply projecting forward from the existing base. One should remember that it is one thing to be a dependent territory with the mother country of over 100 years' standing located thousands of miles away, and quite another to share a contiguous land border with the new sovereign entity populated with cousins 200 times more numerous and all eager to enjoy the better life of Hong Kong they see or hear about. Nobody to my knowledge has as yet publicly acknowledged the political risks within China arising out of the implementation of the Joint Declaration, if perhaps only to stress the practical limits of Chinese elbow-room. Reality, I am afraid, is always multi-faceted.
On China's part, she will not achieve her ambitions from Hong Kong if there is an excessive-because also largely unnecessary-emphasis in the Basic Law on aspects of national sovereignty. I say unnecessary because any possible fears about external or internal threats to the resumption of sovereignty are no longer real. The formalistic and defensive insistence on sovereign rights in the face of the general acceptance of future sovereign power can only lead to misunder- standings and complications. This applies in particular to questions like the formation of the first SAR Government and the transitory arrangements, the interpretation of the Basic Law, or the applicability of national laws in the SAR.