1620
Parliamer
Hong Kong:
[ 10 JUNE 1988 ]
over 10,000 miles away and populated by non- hese. Whatever the safeguards and whatever the legal pieties, that is the truth. What is happening is that after 1997, for Westminster we must read Beijing.
Your Lordships may however regard it as a sign of considerable statesmanship on the part of the Beijing Government that they have been prepared to limit their total freedom of action post-1997 by entering into a solemn international agreement to do so. Hong Kong therefore will be exchanging total dependence on a colonial power for dependence on a China limited by international obligations freely entered into and accepted by Beijing.
But, some say, there have been great upheavals in China in the recent past, and even if one accepts the good faith of the present government in Beijing such upheavals may recur. What then? The question is entirely fair. My answer is that if the worst occurred, if there were another cultural revolution in China or a dramatic heightening of East-West tension, debates on the details of the Basic Law and the degree of autonomy or otherwise in Hong Kong would be largely irrelevant anyway. I cannot believe that Hong Kong could prosper in such circumstances whatever the Basic Law may say. The same would probably have been true even if Hong Kong had still been a British colony.
I suggest to your Lordships that even in such dreadful circumstances Hong Kong would probably be better off now that its relationship with the rest of China has been explicitly recognised and enshrined in an international agreement than it has been in the past when the relationship between Hong Kong and China was based on treaties between Great Britain and the pre-revolutionary China which were never recognised by the People's Republic. In any event, we are not faced with the China of the cultural revolution but with a country which has made and is making enormous advances in its efforts to open itself to the outside world.
I have no doubt that the present government in Beijing are absolutely genuine when they say that they wish Hong Kong to prosper and that their commitment to "one country two systems" is total. The likelihood is that future Chinese governments will hold the same view.
The reason I say that with such confidence is that I am quite sure that the only reason they have reached such a policy is entirely on the grounds of their own self-interest. The PRC today is an underdeveloped country. Suddenly, in one bound, through the quirks of history, they can acquire one of the most sophisticated financial and commercial centres in the world to whose dynamism the noble Baroness, Lady Young, has just paid tribute. Thus they can jump forward about 50 years overnight. It must be their policy to bring that about.
To achieve that they must acquire Hong Kong as a going concern. Otherwise what have they done? They have acquired a densely-populated barren rock and merely added to their own internal problems. It is because the prize is, for China, so glittering that they have been prepared to accept what must be for them--and let us look at it from their point of view domestically an extremely awkward concept of one country two systems.
Joint Declaration
1630
That concept is absolutely revolutionary. Let me put it like this. Suppose the British Government decided that it would bring great financial benefits to the United Kingdom to give the City of London special status and exempt it from the law of the land. Whatever the financial logic, one can imagine the howls of outrage from outside London and the rest of Britain. In the same way one must suppose that the adoption of the two systems policy potentially has cause for embarrassment for the Beijing Government elsewhere in China.
It is for that reason that I am uneasy about the barrage of complaints which we have seen from some quarters and particularly in the press that Hong Kong's autonomy as at present defined in the first draft of the Basic Law is not total. I believe that there is not in the perfect world but in the real world--one main criterion against which the Basic Law and its related constitutional arrangements must be judged: is it of a nature which allows the people of Hong Kong to prosper and at the same time is capable of being stomached by China because it does not cause too many problems elsewhere in China?
will change, as Beijing governments
do in London. Successive governments
Chinese governments, not just the Ministers who happen to be in power in 1997, must be able to perceive readily that the economic advantages of Hong Kong outweigh for them the doctrinal and domestic political disadvantages of its special status. If pre- 1997 we try to make the Hong Kong political system too alien to Chinese ways, we could just tip the balance of the argument from the Chinese point of view and live to regret it 10, 20 or 30 years after 1997.
Having said that, I fully recognise that we have a duty to do all that we can to lend confidence to the people of Hong Kong by ensuring that the joint declaration is applied in toto. It is for Hong Kong an undoubted safeguard that China cannot be seen without great harm to herself internationally to renege on the joint declaration. Both Her Majesty's Government and the British Parliament must be vigilant during the consultation period to ensure that nothing in the Basic Law as it eventually emerges is inconsistent with the joint declaration.
The first draft is not in all respects what we should like to see. Noble Lords who have spoken-I do not intend to follow them in discussing the details-have mentioned many of the points on which further negotiation is necessary. I for my part pay tribute to the work the Government are doing to ensure that the apprehensions of the people of Hong Kong are taken into account. Beyond that, however, beyond making sure that no part of the joint declaration is departed from, it is not for us but for the people of Hong Kong to give their views on which alternative detailed provisions they prefer inside the general framework of the joint declaration.
I hope people will realise that on the ground. conditions dictate that good faith on both sides may be more important than every single textual nicety. We should not get so carried away with a sense of the superiority of our own system that we sacrifice the people of Hong Kong to our theories. Let us remember that all parties have problems and that all parties are negotiating in good faith to find a reasonable solution. Better, my Lords, three-quarters of a cake than none at all.