13. Although the Chinese were determined that their military forces should have a presence in the SAR (there is no more public a demonstration of a change of sovereignty than the replacement of the British garrison by the PLA ), the leadership apparently recognised that it would be a source of unease in Hong Kong and, at an early stage, Deng Xiaoping stated that there would not be many soldiers in the SAR and that their sole role was defence
[18].
After Tianamen Square, the prospect of the People's Liberation Army being stationed in Hong Kong and the February text on the application of national laws in an emergency were viewed with even greater alarm in Hong Kong, and the British Government was urged to make clear to the Chinese the strength of feeling against the stationing of any troops in Central Hong Kong'
Kong [19]
In the House of Commons on 5th July 1989, Sir Geoffrey Howe stated that the United Kingdom would take up with the Chinese two matters of special concern, namely the draft article which "could enable the Central Government in Peking to declare a state of emergency in Hong Kong after 1997 and, even more important, the question of the stationing in Hong Kong of Chinese military forces" [20]"
The Chinese were unreceptive to representations of that kind and, indeed, it was not to be expected that they would have been. Leaving aside the predictability of the Chinese response in the summer and autumn of 1989, and whatever may justifiably be said in condemnation of the use of the PLA and the brutality of its intervention in Tianamen Square, no state could be expected to renounce the power to take steps to defend itself
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