Lord Wilson of Tillyorn GCMG
香港總督府
CONFIDENTIAL
The Rt Hon Douglas Hurd CBE MP
Secretary of State for Foreign and
Commonwealth Affairs
Foreign and Commonwealth Office London SW1A 2AH
GOVERNMENT HOUSE
HONG KONG
3 July 1992
Hong Kong:
Valdictory Views
"A barren island with hardly a house upon it". Lord Palmerston critising Captain Elliott for taking Hong Kong, 1841.
Sir,
The
When I first arrived in Hong Kong in 1960, as a Foreign Office language student come to study Chinese at the University, the population was just over 3 million. That itself represented a phenomenal growth from the 600,000 or so people who were left here after the Japanese occupation. hillsides were covered with squatter huts as the territory still tried to cope with the massive influx of people that followed the Communist victory in China. There was some conspicuous wealth; but the majority of the people were very poor. Educational standards, except for the elite, were low. Per capita GDP was less than US$300. "Made in Hong Kong" was seen as the hallmark of a cheap copy: "Empire Made" was still used as a way of suggesting that the origin might be elsewhere. Many of the trappings of the traditional colonial way of life were evident, from white gloves at Government House to the shorts and long stockings of the largely expatriate District Officers.
2.
Hong Kong today, as I leave it after five years as Governor, is a very different place. The population, despite substantial outflows over the past few years, is close to 6 million. In European terms this means a territory somewhere between Denmark and Switzerland. Hong Kong is now more
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wealthy than several members of the European Community. It is the tenth largest trading territory in the world. Per capita GDP is likely to exceed US$16,000 this year. Half of the population lives in housing provided by the Government subsidised Housing Authority many paradoxes of a place often seen as the epitome of laissez-faire capitalism. Squatter huts in the but not quite a thing of The population is increasingly well educated and articulate.
urban areas are almost the past.
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one of the
3. Hong Kong remains a colony for a further five years.
But the images conjured up by this word are increasingly inappropriate. This is a bustling Chinese city, with an international flavour, which has flourished under the umbrella of British administration through the extraordinary energy and resilience of its own people.
4.
Such changes in the course of thirty years are not unique. Many places, particularly on the Pacific Rim, have seen similar stories of spectacular growth. What is more remarkable, and less understood round the rest of the world, is how this growth has continued over the past few years, despite concerns about the return of sovereignty to China in 1997 and a series of political and other shocks which could have shattered a less resilient community.
5. Since I came here as Governor in early 1987, per capita GDP has almost doubled in money terms (a rise of 16% in real terms); twice as many places are available at the universities and polytechnics; over 220,000 new subsidised flats have been built by the Housing Authority; and the stock market is at an all-time high (with a total valuation more than twice as high as in early 1987). Hong Kong is embarking on many projects, including a new airport, the real benefit of which will only be felt after British administration ends in five years time. It is also a society remarkable as much for its private generosity as for its more obvious commercial success. The Community Chest an organisation which raises funds for a large number of smaller charities - last year raised over HK$ 130 million (nearly £10 million), much of it from small donations. Perhaps excessively, Hong Kong has recently become the Mecca for charitable money-raisers from elsewhere. particularly if there is some Hong Kong or China.
Many succeed, demonstrable link with
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6.
But
All this despite the shadow of 1997. that shadow remains. In many ways it is deepening. In 1979, when we first raised seriously with the Chinese the issue of what to do about the end of the New Territories lease (covering over 90% of the territory), it was hoped that some way could be found to obscure the effect of what the Chinese always referred to as the "unequal treaties" of the nineteenth century. If the Chinese did not recognise the treaties, and if the status quo suited everybody, including the Chinese who gained at least a third of their foreign exchange earning from the territory, then surely a way could be found of obscuring the fateful date by extending land leases in a way which reassured investors without damaging China's national pride. The hope proved to be vain. Unequal treaty or not, it became clear that, for the Chinese as much as anybody else, 1997 was a date fixed irrevocably in the calendar. negotiations started in earnest in 1982, the hope of continuing British administration under Chinese sovereignty - an arrangement which would have met the wishes of the vast majority of Hong Kong's population proved vain as well. China was determined that the legacy of its nineteenth century weakness in the face of the imperial powers should disappear before the end of the twentieth century. National pride was at stake.
7.
When
In the circumstances, the Joint Declaration signed in December 1984 was a remarkable achievement. Britain had been dealt an appallingly difficult hand of cards by the arrangements made in 1898 for a 99-year lease (one reason for which was to prevent the Russians demanding further ceded territory in the North). It contained no trumps and precious few court cards, except the damage that could be done to Chinese economic interests, and their hope for the reintegration of Taiwan, by a collapse of Hong Kong. Despite this, the arrangements that have been written down for the policies China will adopt towards Hong Kong for 50 years beyond 1997 cover most, but not all, of what we were trying to achieve and are certainly as good as could reasonably be expected. The constant question of the critics, and many others, is not whether the content of the Joint Declaration is as good as it could be but whether the provisions of the agreement will really work. The honest answer is that it is impossible to know in advance. this must be added the rider that we must do everything we can to ensure that they do.
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