HONG KONG LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL -5 July 1989
2091
Sir, there is a Chinese saying , meaning to escape by water. I earnestly hope that Britain will not E, meaning to escape her responsibilities to Hong
Kong by means of one-man-one-vote.
Sir, with these remarks, I support the motion.
MRS. TU: Sir, the Foreign Affairs Committee in their report made some good points on the Basic Law, though I noticed that most of their suggestions appear to have originated with my colleague, Mr. Andrew WONG, and his Constitution Development Panel.
But the report does not address itself, except in a negative way, to the main issue. And the main issue is that, no matter how good the Joint Declaration and the constitution may be, no matter whether it is backed up by the United Nations and the Covenants on Human Rights and whatever, all such assurances mean nothing so long as the Administration of Hong Kong is at the mercy of a small bureaucracy across the border which takes leave of its senses and massacres innocent, peaceful demonstrators, and brutally disposes of its critics.
How can Britain put our Hong Kong people into the hands of those who resort to using tanks and guns on their own youth when they reportedly run short of water and teargas? Normal people would have tried talking to see what had caused the demonstrations in the first place, but obviously we are not dealing with normal people.
Both Sir Geoffrey HOWE and the Foreign Affairs Committee expressed shock at the recent atrocities in China. So how can they continue to utter platitudes about trusting an agreement, unless they also provide a way of escape to assure our people's safety in case that agreement is broken?
In 1984, I was very happy that Britain and China agreed on the Joint Declaration, and I knew at last that my country's colonial past in China was about to be buried. But in handing Hong Kong back to Chinese sovereignty, how can we shirk our responsibility to make sure that our Hong Kong fellow citizens have a way of escape if their treatment turns out to be worse than that of the colonials? Can we desert our fellow citizens of Hong Kong in their hour of need? In all conscience, we
cannot.
If the British Government continues to refuse to provide a safety net against the possible future danger, and to enable us to remain in Hong Kong, the only alternative I can see is for Britain to postpone the implementation of the Joint Declaration and negotiate with China a 10- or 20-year lease on the territory. China needs time to consider the recent catastrophe. China needs time to recover economically as well as politically from the mess into which she has been mindlessly plunged. And Hong Kong needs time to recover from its trauma and the economic consequences of the past few months. Now is the time to make the decision on how to protect our Hong