XN000022-1995-10-23 — Page 26

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after 1997 as a result? It is invariably said with a large crocodile tear as though the critics cared much at what happened on these fronts.

This argument seems to assume two things. First, that the alternative to an argument with China was a quiet life, that if we had not kept our promises under the Joint Declaration to protect Hong Kong's freedoms, that if we had not kept our promises, for examples, on elections, we would have found ourselves locked in five years of battle with the pro-Democracy forces on Hong Kong. We would have taken all the opprobrium of doing the dirty work for others.

Secondly, if someone threatens to break your windows in the future, why would you consider it sensible to agree yourself to save them the trouble and break them all today? I hope it does not happen, but if Hong Kong has less freedom after 1997, why would it have been better if we had given it less freedom before 1997? Besides, it is not just a question of institutions. I believe there is a momentum behind the changes that have taken place in Hong Kong. Hong Kong has changed and there is no turning the clock back. Anyone who is concerned about hearts and minds in Hong Kong should recognise that.

Embedded in all these arguments is a substantial and important difference of approach in conducting foreign policy and in discharging the responsibilities that go with our sovereign position in Hong Kong, responsibilities like those that we carried in the earlier days of empire elsewhere. Hong Kong is about flesh and blood. It is about families and families' futures. It is not just an intellectual puzzle. It is not just an irritating aggravation to the otherwise smooth relationship between Britain and China.

We do not have a bilateral relationship with anyone that has a single element in it as large as Hong Kong. Don't forget what I said earlier, that Hong Kong represents in terms of economic strengths about a quarter of China's GDP. Of course, Britain has a national interest in having a sensible, open, cordial relationship with China. But the way we discharge our responsibilities in Hong Kong will have a huge effect in the future on how that relationship develops and how we regard it in China.

I hope we will leave behind us in Hong Kong a feeling that we did our best, that we behaved decently and honourably. I hope we will leave behind a little respect and even perhaps some affection.

Conceivably there is another angle to all this which portrays my amateur status. I cannot believe that diplomacy is basically about getting on nicely with foreigners. It must above all be about ends not means, and sometimes that requires you to dig in, to hold your ground, to stand on your principles - a point which I think your Chancellor would argue with some vigour! Nor it is acceptable, at least for this amateur, when diplomacy turns into an elaborate effort to obfuscate points of substance with elegant