FEFL HỒNG KÔNG.
1
THU 04 NOV 98 15:56
PG.01
CONFIDENTIAL AND PERSONAL
3.
Throughout the early spring and summer, the public mood has been sustained by the hope indeed by a fairly widespread assumption that the constitutional talks would end in some form of agreement, sooner or later. This was, I suppose, understandable: despite the absence of tangible progress, both sides were careful for obvious reasons to reiterate publicly their commitment to achieving an agreement; and the absence of hard fact about the substance of the talks made it easy for people to avoid dwelling on the lack of good news and to hope for the best.
4. In recent weeks, however, the public assessment of the prospects of success has changed radically. Opinion polls suggest that an increasing number of people perhaps a majority
expect the talks to fail. The Governor's LegCo address, in particular his warning that there are "weeks rather than months" left, has helped to prepare the community for the worst. Many people no doubt drew their own conclusions from the spectacle of the British and Chinese negotiators disagreeing in public before the beginning of the thirteenth round. Yet the public mood still swings dramatically from gloom to temporary euphoria (for example after the Governor's -misunderstood - comments about separating the 1994 and 1995 arrangements). People are very ready to clutch at any straws in the wind, from whatever quarters they might be blowing. It is a fair assumption, therefore, that an announcement of a partial agreement and a more intensive phase of the negotiations would generate a new wave of optimism.
Breakdown Scenarios
5.
How would the community react in the event of a breakdown? Much would of course depend on the circumstances in which the breakdown occurred and on China's reaction to it. On the whole, I think the community would accept it with grim resignation. And there would be a serious attempt on the part of many to treat it with determined indifference, arguing that what mattered now was Hong Kong's burgeoning economic relationship with China, which temporary political disagreements could do nothing to undermine. But it would not take much say a sudden drop in the (now seriously overbought) local stock market, or a particularly threatening statement from a Chinese leader to provoke a more emotional reaction.
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6. Some LegCo members I have spoken to are already in a highly apprehensive state. For example Selina Chow of the Liberals told me that she regarded the prospect of a breakdown as almost too horrible to contemplate, and found it difficult to focus on possible breakdown scenarios. She warned that the full implications of four years of Sino-British non cooperation (should it come to that) had not yet really sunk in as far as most people were concerned. Her views are typical of her fellow Liberals, and will, I think, shape that party's reaction to events as they unfold. Another interlocutor Martin Barrow has been in equally grim mood, predicting a community backlash and anti British feeling should the talks end in failure.
CONFIDENTIAL AND PERSONAL