autonomous Special Administrative Region, preserving all existing rights and freedoms, an independent judiciary and a capitalist economy for 50 years after 1997.
This visit is not just about a few days' friendly or
hostile newspaper headlines and photographs. We want to
launch a new phase of more productive practical cooperation
between Britain and China, and also between Hong Kong and
China, in the six years remaining before 1997. We have
already decided to hold six-monthly meetings at Foreign
Minister level, so that momentum and good contact over Hong
Kong affairs can be maintained. We hope there will also be
more regular meetings between Hong Kong and Chinese
officials. Hong Kong under British administration has been
a remarkable success story. We are determined to do
everything we can to ensure that it will continue to be a
success story after 1997.
We
As I have repeatedly said, in order to fulfil our
responsibilities to Hong Kong we have to work with China in
a reasonably constructive fashion. To refuse to do so on
grounds of moral squeamishness would itself be morally indefensible and an abdication of responsibility. maintained contact with the Soviet Union, at Head of
Government level, throughout the Cold War. No one has
suggested that talking to Stalin or to Brezhnev indicated moral approval, either of them personally or of their political system.
Recent events in the Soviet Union have highlighted in dramatic terms the isolation of the Chinese government from the global trend towards political liberalisation. But the response to this should not be to seek to isolate China still further. Quite apart from the crucial question of Hong Kong, that would be entirely wrong.
China's role (and how she chooses to exercise it) as a
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