HONG KONG LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL
5 July 1989
香港立法局———————— 一九八九年七月五日
34
Market countries, all Commonwealth countries including Australia and Canada, and the United States. It will be a route to freedom and safety if life in Hong Kong is no longer tolerable under the communist regime.
The Foreign Affairs Committee report recommends "that the British Government should take the lead at the earliest opportunity in establishing the definite guarantees which could be put into place in the years ahead." I say to you that the right of abode in the United Kingdom is the best and the only definitive guarantee. I say to you also that the "earliest opportunity" is now before everyone leaves Hong Kong to secure a home of last resort elsewhere. If you will take the first step, and you should as it is your moral obligation to do so, in establishing this guarantee, then no doubt your "easy partners and immigrant receiving countries such as Australia, Canada and United States" may share your responsibility. With your failure to give us such a guarantee, reluctant as I may, I must advise the people of Hong Kong, and urgently now, each to seek for themselves a home of last resort even if they have to leave to do so. I do so because, as a legislator, my duty is with the people first and the stability and prosperity of Hong Kong second, although the two are so interdependent on each other.
I know my people; they want freedoms and democracy, even more so than the students in Beijing. Having experienced it under British rule, they would not be prepared to give this up. If such is rejected, the consequences of confrontation with the Beijing Government after 1997 would be unimaginable. From what has happened in China, she has certainly not kept to her promise to maintain stability and prosperity of Hong Kong running up to 1997. We therefore have to turn to you, and rightly so, as you are our sovereign and the other signatory to the Joint Declaration. If you do not grant full citizenship to the people of Hong Kong and all of us flock to the four corners of the world, not only are you not contributing to maintaining the prosperity and stability of Hong Kong, but you are literally destroying it. Who else then can we turn to?
I will end with this request and that is: grant us now the guarantee of a home of last resort and we will stay. This is the only way to restore confidence and to maintain the prosperity and stability of Hong Kong. This will give the only chance for the Joint Declaration to work for the benefit of all of us.
Sir, with these remarks, I support the motion before Council.
陳英麟議員致辭:主席先生,六、四天安門事件後,加上中國政府又不停地警告香港人,連英國 那位不知「何許人也」的人,亦出言恐嚇。因此,在知悉英國國會外交事務委員會的建議後,市