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those economies if people are to have decent lives, and that is what
is needed. The longer the East Germans delay in taking those
necessary steps, the more difficult the situation will become.
Q: If East Germans want to come to Britain, will they be welcome
here?
A: They mostly of course want to go to Germany which they regard as part of their divided country. As citizens of the Federal Republic,
they are citizens of the European Community and they have the
ordinary rights of any other European Community citizen.
Q: So they would be able to come to Britain?
A: They could be yes, and it is of course written into the Basic Law
of the Federal Republic that any German citizen from the East has
the right to come to West Germany but once they are citizens of the
Community they are citizens of the Community.
Q: So why are we allowing East Germans to come here but we are
reluctant to let Hong Kong people or Vietnamese Boat People to come
here?
A: We do take genuine refugees in very considerable numbers. But
the situation of Hong Kong is not a parallel. In 1962 at the end of the winding-up of the British Empire, those huge territories, all of
which technically had had the right to abode in Britain, that was ended. And since 1962 this last little bit of imperial territory, the citizens of that territory have not had the right of abode here
except for special reasons; if they have connections with the United
Kingdom. I don't think Britain, any more than any other former
imperial country, could really have operated a policy of saying that all the million and millions and millions of people who were our
former imperial citizens could have the right to come here and Hong
Kong is just in that sense the last relic of Empire. But on the
positive side of course, all our efforts are being devoted to try to
secure the prosperity and the freedom of those people in a tolerable
regime in relationship to their great neighbour, and that is what
our agreement with mainland China is aimed at doing.