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The Airport Agreement
The year after Tiananmen was largely occupied by efforts on
our side to restore confidence in Hong Kong, usually in the
face of Chinese resistance. Two of these measures, more
democracy and more British passports, have been described
in the previous chapter. A third, the passage of a Hong Kong
Bill of Rights, was completed in June, 1990. There was
another decision, however, in the same category and made
about that time, which provoked a more protracted struggle,
a milestone in the intensifying effort by the Chinese
Government to establish a dominant influence in Hong Kong
in the final years of the transition. This was the question
of the new airport. It developed into the most serious
crisis we had faced since 1983; and it was resolved in
dramatic fashion by an agreement, which the Chinese at
least placed in something like the same order of importance
as the Joint Declaration and which seemed at the time to
usher in a new era of Sino-British cooperation.
Though the Governor's decision to build a new
airport, announced in October, 1989, was part of the
confidence-building operation, the project had its own
compelling rationale. Anyone making the hair-raising
descent into Kai Tak, surrounded by Kowloon high-rise
blocks, could appreciate the requirement for a better site.
There were strong economic grounds. The existing airport
was near saturation point and would soon constrict Hong