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HONG KONG LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL — 5 July 1989
it was the winter of despair,
we had everything before us,
we had nothing before us,
we were all going direct to Heaven,
we were all going direct the other way."
Sir, this opening passage from A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens sums up the feelings of many people in Hong Kong today. It is particularly suitable because the novel was written about the French Revolution, and today is just nine days away from the bicentennial of the Fall of the Bastille.
The cries of the French peasants for "liberte, equalite and fraternite" 200 years ago were picked up by the tens of thousands of university students in Beijing in their demands for democracy, human rights and a clean government. And the students built for themselves a replica of the Statue of Liberty in New York which was a gift from the French people to the people of the United States over 100 years ago. That symbol of democracy for China was crudely crushed by a tank during the Tiananmen Square massacre on 4 June. But many other similar statues have since sprung up in different parts of the world to show that the flame of democracy which was so gently ignited by the Beijing students has touched the hearts of millions of people in every corner of the earth regardless of national boundaries, race or creed.
And in the aftermath of the massacre which the people of Hong Kong watched with horror, shock, anger and now fear for their future after 1997, it is timely for us to have a debate on the Foreign Affairs Committee (FAC) report which has addressed many concerns of the people of Hong Kong.
And I shall deal with the report under separate headings.
Blind faith in the Joint Declaration
It is naive and unrealistic for the British Government still to have blind faith in the Joint Declaration. Sir Geoffrey Howe told us two days ago that he still believes that the Chinese Government will honour the Joint Declaration to the full because it was in its interest to do so.
This sounds like a good argument; but there is a fundamental flaw in it. For if the present confidence crisis were to continue unabated either because of the British Government's refusal to grant the right of abode to the 3.25 million British subjects and to provide a life-line for the other 2.5 million Hong Kong citizens, or for some other reason, and if Hong Kong should lose her prosperity or stability as a result which many will think is a distinct possibility, then the Chinese Government might no