XN000022-1995-10-23 — Page 27

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communiques, made up of perfectly laminated sentences. Sometimes the words have to mean what they say, what they say about power, what they say about principle.

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So finally, what is the state of Hong Kong today, just over 600 days before the transition? It continues to prosper. Our growth rate this year will be. I heard it described the other day which tells you a thing or two about Hong Kong - only five per cent! It continues to enjoy effective government, accountable to a very lively legislature, a lively and noisy legislature, reminding me of that marvellous remark of Rab Butter, who described a noisy House of Commons one day as being the 'sound of freedom'! It continues to enjoy the Rule of Law. It has a good civil service led by local Chinese civil servants, and the people of Hong Kong themselves have stayed in Hong Kong. There has been no tidal wave of emigration as was forecast a decade ago. Hong Kong is preparing for the transition. The people of Hong Kong are prepared to give things a go, to hope for the best and to believe that the best may still happen, though they want more reassurances from China. They want reassurance that their way of life will continue. I am afraid that recently they have not received much of that reassurance, since some of those who advised China in Hong Kong have made the deplorable suggestion in the last few days that Hong Kong's Bill of Rights should be gutted after 1997. I hope that Chinese officials will think again about that proposition.

The people of Hong Kong will ask ever more insistently over the next 600 days, the world will ask ever more insistently, whether Hong Kong really will carry on as it is now, whether it will stay a stable, decent prosperous, open, free society. As I said, Hong Kong has shown great resilience in the past and my instinct is that it should be able to manage 1997 with the same gumption.

I also believe that what Hong Kong stands for, the values that have made it successful, represent the future in Asia. Add Hong Kong's position at the heart of this region, where market economics is transforming the lives of hundred of millions of people, and that is another reason for thinking that Hong Kong will get through.

Of course, China itself has a huge stake in Hong Kong's continuing success. Its financial stake represents, it is estimated, US$20 billion. It also has a different sort of stake, what is called 'face'. China is, I think, determined to show that Hong Kong can do even better after 1997 than it has done before under a colonial regime. It knows that the rest of the world will be watching, and that some will be watching what happens rather sceptically. It knows that the world will take the way China treats Hong Kong as a litmus test of how China is likely to behave on the world stage.

When we leave Hong Kong in 1997, I am determined that we should be able to do so with our heads held high, giving Hong Kong the best chance of a bright future. When we depart, we will be saying to China that we understand how important this moment in history is for them, we understand the patriotic feelings that it unlocks, but we have our patriotism too. We have our sense of honour. We believe that we have