HONG KONG: BULL POINTS
RELATIONS WITH CHINA OVER HONG KONG
- Last 18 months have been difficult in relations with China over Hong Kong. Gradually returning to more cooperative relationship.
Francis Maude's visit to China on 24-27 July provided a useful opportunity for exchange of views on Hong Kong issues. Vice Foreign Minister Tian Zengpei also visited UK on 21-22 November. With EC decision in October gradually to restore more normal relations with China, we expect cooperation over Hong Kong to return to level of the past.
Sino-British Joint Liaison Group has resumed meetings after temporary postponement last summer. The 16th plenary meeting held in London on 25-28 September made progress on a number of practical issues. Next meeting is taking place in Hong Kong in December.
Underlying reality remains that 92% of the land area of Hong Kong must revert to China when the lease expires in 1997. The remaining 8% could never be viable on its own. Question is therefore whether Hong Kong reverts to China with an agreement or without one. We negotiated long and hard to ensure that this happened on best possible terms for Hong Kong.
Destiny of Hong Kong inevitably bound up with destiny of China. This is historical and geographical reality. Any viable future for Hong Kong must depend on successful and secure coexistence with China. That objective enshrined in Joint Declaration.
Spells
Joint Declaration is a remarkably good agreement. out the kind of future we want for Hong Kong ie. continuation for at least fifty years of Hong Kong's capitalist system and way of life, with all its human rights and freedoms, its laws and legal system, its own freely convertible currency and its free port.
- In their report on Hong Kong, published in June 1989, the
Foreign Affairs Select Committee described the Joint Declaration as "the best and surest treaty base for the future of Hong Kong".
- Firmest guarantee of any agreement is that it is based on common interests. China has massive stake in Hong Kong's continuing success both economically and politically. Nothing that has happened recently has changed that fact.
TOYADC