TNAG-0752-FCO40-956-Future-of-Hong-Kong-1979 — Page 38

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Pac. Community July 1977

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NEW. THOUGHTS ON THE FUTURE

OF HONGKONG

By Dick Wilson

T is widely known that the present practical status of Hong- kong would, if left to itself, come to an abrupt end at mid- night on June 30, 1997. The territory administered by Britain in Hongkong falls into two parts: that which was ceded, to Britain in perpetuity by the Chinese government of the day under "unequal" treaties and conventions (viz, the Treaty of Nanking in 1842, supplemented by the Convention of Peking in 1860) and territory which was only leased to the British govern- ment, under the terms of a convention almost at the end of the century. It is the Convention of Peking of 1898 which governs the status of what are now called the New Territories in Hongkong, and their lease to the British government expires in the middle of 1997. But because the economic development of Hongkong as a whole has proceeded in an integrated way, it is impossible to envisage the survival of the ceded part without the leased part, ' since the latter contains a large proportion of Hongkong's manu- facturing industry, water supply, food production and service facilities. It is best, from the point of view of realism, to talk about the future of Hongkong as a continued united entity, and therefore that future depends on what happens after June 1997.

Until now any questions which observers have put about Hongkong's post-1997 future have been met with a standard eva- sive reply, whether on the part of the British or the Chinese. The year 1997, in both versions, is too far away for anybody to be con- cerned about. Since Hongkong is a robustly capitalist society in which a return on financial investment is usually assured in as little as three years, or at the most in five years, the reply has satisfied several generations of enquirers and would-be investors in Hongkong. But this summer will provide something of a psycholog- ical turning point. For the past few years it has been possible to say that the lease expiry question lies "more than twenty years" away. But from July 1, 1977 onwards it will no longer be possible to say this, and the number of years left will gradually fall away from nineteen. A term of years beginning with the figure one rather than the figure two is psychologically very much shorter.

Nineteen years would still, however, not be enough to concern

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