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[Mr. Ivan Lawrence]
Hong Kong Bill
21 JANUARY 1985
of playing this was to play it long, because I did not believe that we could rely on undertakings given by a Government who would not necessarily still be in power in 1997. I think that I was wrong, and I recant-
Sir John Page: Does my hon. and learned Friend consider that there may not be a Conservative Government in power in 1997?
Mr. Lawrence: Of course a Conservative Government will be in power in this country in 1997. I have no doubt about that, and I have seen nothing in the past few weeks of parliamentary business to lead me to suppose otherwise. However, I was referring to the Government in Peking. I was about to say something that I do not normally say —that I was wrong, that I am pleased to recant and that it would be churlish of me to see the apparent good will of the Chinese Government in their dealings with Britain over the future of Hong Kong as anything other than a desire to bring about a satisfactory conclusion for all of us.
I shall comment on three matters that were raised by my right hon. and learned Friend the Foreign Secretary. They have already been much commented on, so I shall be brief. I deal first with the new nationality description. It does not seem to matter much what the description is, as long as we remember that it is important that the status should confer comparable rights and entitlements to those enjoyed at present. It is that end that we must keep in view. I am sure that my right hon. and learned Friend's suggestion as to the nomenclature will be acceptable to all parties.
For a Foreign Office Minister, my right hon. and learned Friend the Foreign Secretary was characteristically wholly defensive about the second matter, the treatment of Orders in Council when they come to be debated. I hope he will note that there is all-party concern that there should be a proper opportunity to reflect any strong feelings about these orders. It is less important how those feelings are considered than that the Minister should take into account the strength of concern on the point that such matters should be properly and fully debated. We should ensure that technicalities are not used as an excuse to cut short any consideration of those sensitive and important matters.
Thereby, I welcome the fact that statelessness is referred to in the Bill. However, the reference is unsatisfactory, in that it whets the appetite and implies that something is about to be said about the stateless, when in reality nothing much is said. However, it shows our continuing concern and commitment to do something to abolish that statelessness, and that is to be welcomed.
In the context of mere references only I should have welcomed some mention of the future of Crown servants. Given the sensitivities involved, I realise that that might have been a little difficult. However, perhaps I can use this opportunity to say that Hong Kong's Crown servants have not been forgotten even though there has, to my knowledge, been no mention of them tonight. We consider it extremely important that any servants of the Crown should be treated properly, to their satisfaction, and given every opportunity of returning to this country if they find it impossible to stay in Hong Kong. Let us hope that it will not prove impossible for them to stay, but they should at least have that reassurance. Indeed, I should have liked some mention of that reassurance in the Bill, although I understand why it is not there.
Hong Kong Bill
786
One matter has caused me great concern since my visit in August to Hong Kong. I have listened to most of today's speeches, but I have heard little reference to the issue that I have in mind, and that only causes me greater concern. I refer to the question of the fundamental freedoms. Have we done, and are we doing, enough to reassure the people of Hong Kong that they will continue? I have no doubt that prosperity is likely to remain with the colony. I shall not repeat the various views and experiences mentioned by hon. Members on that point. However, that prosperity is unlikely to survive any loss of the peoples' fundamental freedoms--and therein lies my worry.
If the rich entrepreneurs and professionals become frightened, they will leave. If the millions who have already fled once from China take fright again and try to leave Hong Kong or to disrupt it, there will be trouble. In the violence and chaos, the economy will collapse. How can the Hong Kong Chinese be sure that China will not interfere with such fundamental freedoms as the right to free speech, the right to a free press, to freedom of travel, the freedom of investment, the right to have free trade unions, the right to have free access to independent courts and the right to have some degree of true democracy?
This is why we are so concerned. One has only to ask where in the Communist world in general or in China in particular those freedoms exist at present to understand that that is a realistic fear.
we
One serious problem that has not been raised or with discussed today is that the Chinese probably do not, the best will in the world, mean the same as we do by several terms that are used to describe fundamental freedoms. I doubt very much whether the Chinese understand by "democracy" what mean by "democracy". I doubt very much whether they understand by the "rule of law" what we mean by the “rule of law”. I doubt very much whether they understand by “free trade unions" what we mean by "free trade unions”. One can go down the list of descriptions of fundamental freedoms. The difficulty is that when it comes to deciding what meaning is to be applied to words that may form a part in the basic law, it may be found that the fundamental freedom that we thought we were enshrining is not the fundamental freedom that the Chinese believed they were enshrining, and there will be nothing that we can do about it. That is the point.
Direct elections do not seem to command the burning support of the Hong Kong people, and without that burning zeal no Government on earth are likely to surrender substantial control over the will of the masses. Fear of ambitious rabble rousers and polarisation between the well organised Communist trade unions on the one hand and the equally well organised Kuomintang on the other is considerable among the ordinary people whom I met and talked with while I was in Hong Kong. I was told repeatedly that partial democracy with partly elected district boards, urban council and regional council electing part of the Legislative Council, was "the Chinese way”. Accordingly, the Peking Government will be able to appoint their own representatives to the Legislative and Executive Councils, and Communist control will be greatly facilitated. As there are unlikely to be any direct elections, that restraint upon tyranny will simply not exist.
Therefore, will China be able to resist interfering with theple of Hong Kong after 1997? Will the Chinese consider it sufficient of a triumph to be able to proclaim that Communism can live side by side by with capitalism
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