人
INTERNATIONAL SUPPORT: STATEMENT IN HONG KONG
?
1. In his statement of 20 December, the Foreign Secretary said that
while Hong Kong is a British responsibility, it is also an international centre, with huge international investment. Its major
trading partners have a strong interest in Hong Kong's continuing stability and prosperity. He undertook to ask our partners and
allies to follow our lead in introducing measures to assure Hong
Kong people in ways which contribute to Hong Kong's stability and prosperity.
many
S
2. In the three months since that announcement, we have made
repeated representations at a high level to the governments of 20 countries. The Prime Minister, the Foreign Secretary and I have
posesally raised the matter with our counterparts in these countries. We have made it clear to them that the question of the future of Hong Kong is a matter between the governments of the United Kingdom and China.
This will remain the case. There is no question of going back on the provisions of the Joint Declaration, nor of internationalising
matters which are the sole concern of Britain and China.
3.
In
Fact
It is precisely because we are concerned to maintain the stability and prosperity of Hong Kong as we are obliged to do
under the Joint Declaration that we have introduced measures to
encourage key people to remain in the territory, and have urged
other countries to dathe same.
4.
-
Introduce similar meas-e,
has
of
Indios
head of Inhle +
The response to our efforts has been generally very encouraging. Singapore has already introduced a scheme covering up to 25,000 people, eluđing blue collar workers. This ready been operating for a number of months.
5.
Paunties
As far as our EC partners are concerned, the French Government are implementing a scheme to provide passports or right of entry to 1280 employees of French companies and their families. Germany, Belgium and Luxembourg are about to finalise schemes of broadly the
same nature. A number of other EC countries are actively
considering what they could do to help.
SEBAAN
-1-