23 MAR '89 18:21
FROM 001 TECH PADID
TO FCO NEWS
PAGE.040
TRANSCRIPT D: HONG KONG SELECT COMMITTEE MEETING 22 MAR 89
-9-
FORKLIGN SKCRETARY:
The Chinese expectation certainly is that Vietnamese
All of us refugees will have returned to Viet Nam by that time.
bope that over a period as long as eight years the problem will in
fact have been resolved in that direction.
The Chinese themselves, of course, have taken back refugees
of Vietnamese origin and Chinese nationality.
CHAIRMAN:
Secretary of State, we have mentioned more than once this
morning both you and the Committee the great prosperity of
Hong Kong's surrounding region and the enormous potential lu South
China and that part of East Asia and South-East Asia.
It has been put to the Committee that while we want to do
our best for Hong Kong, we also waut to do our best as the Quited
Kingdom for our own business in this potentially very attractive
and expanding area. Do you feel that British business interests
are getting all the development and representation they need in
Hong Kong up to 1997 and, indeed, thinking ahead, after 1997 or
are we in some sense bamstrung in the sense that we are having to
organise the politics, we are the withdrawing power, and therefore
we cannot do as much on the business side as we would like ?