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The second thing which follows or should follow - as night follows day from the visa decision is a prompt, sensible and generous decision by China on right of abode in Hong Kong. The promises have been made, most recently by Mr Qian Qichen. Hong Kong is promised that everyone with permanent resident status before 1997 will have it afterwards. Now this really is an issue on which the Preparatory Committee should speak up for Hong Kong. An issue where it should get its skates on. Better for the Preparatory Committee to give this matter priority and drop the threats to Hong Kong's civil liberties and human rights.
This matters so much to so many families. It matters to Hong Kong's substantial diàspora overseas. It matters to present and future confidence. Perhaps one or two business leaders could call for this, too. Hong Kong expects, has a right to expect, simple and practical arrangements to be brought forward as soon as possible.
Third, as I've said already, one reason why visa free travel is so important to Hong Kong is because of the international nature of our community. As one of the largest trading centres in the world, one of the predominant financial and business centres, how could it not be a truly international place. Presumably Chinese leaders recognise that as well and that's one reason why they've rightly pressed for the decision that Britain has now made.
The Prime Minister gave another very important reassurance in his speech last Monday - that Britain will be watching carefully over the implementation of the Joint Declaration after 1997; and will ensure that others are watching too. Obviously, he - like the rest of us hopes that China will abide rigorously by the Joint Declaration, and 1 can quite understand Chinese antipathy to the assumption, made perhaps unfairly in some quarters, that China won't in fact keep its word. Assume the best, sounds fair to me. But in life you also have to prepare yourself in case things don't go right. And the Prime Minister made clear that Britain has in and out of the Joint Declaration, a legal, moral and economic commitment to the well-being of Hong Kong. So, he said, we will stand by Hong Kong, and if anything goes wrong, Britain will pursue matters through every appropriate channel with as much international support as we can muster.
To those who raise an eyebrow at such a suggestion, let me say this: when the Joint Declaration, an international treaty between Britain and China, was lodged at the United Nations, what on earth do you suppose was intended by that symbolic act? What do you suppose are the practical implications of the fact that our rights are guaranteed in international U.N. covenants applied directly to Hong Kong?