POREIGN SEC:
SPBBCH
-
FOREIGN SECRETARY (CONTD):
HONG KONG GENERAL CHAMBER OF COMMERCE - 15 JANUARY 1990
-11-
scoring debating points about this.
We want to start a process of
democracy in Hong Kong which will attract sensible people of
goodwill to play a full part and a full role in political life and
obviously that is most likely to be achieved if these people can see
that that role will continue and develop after 1997.
We will weigh up the considerations, I will weigh up what I
hear during this visit, particularly today and tomorrow, and take
the decision with the Government of Rong Kong which we believe to be
in the best interests of llong Kong.
Ladies and Gentlemen, I have touched on some of the difficult
decisions we have taken or which we are preparing before long to
take but there is another problem here which is that to the outside
world, to the British newspaper-reader for example, there is a
danger that Bong Kong will be seen as a series of problems but that
is not the reality, that is not your lives and that is not what
actually we, your visitors bere today, see around us as we move
about. What we sae as we go about is an amazing success story with
great plans and prospects for the future and that is the truth which
we have somehow to get through.
In that context, I am particularly conscious that 1 address a
particular part of this audience on the economic and commercial
importance of Britain's relationship with Hong Kong.
As the
eleventh largest trading entity in the world, Hong Kong must be
taken seriously by us British as a market in its own right and not