2048
HONG KONG LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL
5 July 1989
I know my people; they want freedom 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.
MR. CHAN (in Cantonese): Sir, following the June 4 incident at Tiananmen Square, Hong Kong people have been repeatedly warned by the Chinese authorities. Moreover, there was also that "somebody" in Britain who also attempted to intimidate the Hong Kong community with threats. That is why after learning about the recommendations of the Foreign Affairs Committee, the people of Hong Kong have great reservations about the sense of justice and integrity of those Members of Parliament. On the other hand, they are afraid of the brutal regime in China which massacred its people. As a result, Hong Kong people are now standing at the crossroads.
In order to save themselves, the middle-class citizens who can afford to emigrate choose to leave the territory, joining the long queues of would-be applicants in front of foreign consulates. I think that as more and more people leave Hong Kong, those who are left behind will feel all the more frightened.
As for the majority who cannot afford to emigrate, they have conceived some very imaginative ideas to save themselves, such as appealing to the rich people to buy a piece of land outside Hong Kong as a place of resettlement for them, or urging the Government to scrap development projects such as the construction of a new airport and use the money thus saved for building a new Hong Kong elsewhere. Other suggest that we should lease Hong Kong from China and put it under the mandate of the United Nations, or that Britain should negotiate with China for an extension of her rule over Hong Kong.
I believe these people know very well that their suggestions are hardly practicable, but they put forward their views all the same, reflecting that the public are in a state of panic in regard to their future. It also brings home to us that the