14
Cold War. Deng's response to the collapse of Communism in Eastern
Europe and the former Soviet Union has been to stress that the
continued survival of the Communist regime in China depends on
accelerating the rate of economic development so as to increase
the prosperity of the Chinese people and to strengthen the state
in the long run. This can only be achieved by continued economic
reform at home and by opening the door still wider to the
internationalist capitalist economy and especially to the
deepening process of economic integration with the dynamic
economies of the Asia-Pacific. Hong Kong is absolutely critical
to all of this. Quite simply Deng cannot afford to allow the Hong
Kong experiment to fail without putting at risk his whole,
strategy for the development of his country and the survival of
the Communist Party in its present form.
7
verstated
Que no inhelpfl
It is perhaps that fundamental coincidence of interest
between the two sides that accounts for the progress that has
been achieved to date. But it should be recalled that what made
the British side retreat in 1983 from its initial negotiating
position in the face of a sudden depreciation of the HK currency
and a dramatic fall in the value of shares was the realisation
that Deng Xiaoping was absolutely serious in his declared
determination to allow Hong Kong to be ruined if necessary in
order to regain full Chinese sovereignty. Even now that he can
have even less interest in allowing Hong Kong to be ruined as the
price for regaining sovereignty, there can be no certainty that
he would not hold to his 1983 position. The exigencies for
political survival in the corridors for power in Beijing are such