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PACIFIC COMMUNITY
monly made, that Chairman Hua in Peking has only to lift a telephone if he wishes to take Hongkong.
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At the same time I also assume that the British are ready and willing to continue their slightly awkward and thankless custodial role in Hongkong indefinitely. This is perhaps a more dangerous premise to work upon, since there are some signs that some people in Britain are getting tired of the responsibility. The Guardian correspondent, Martin Woollacott, recently presented the view that Britain ought to consider withdrawing from Hongkong if in fact on balance it was losing money on its dealings with Hongkong.2. This is a most difficult topic to argue about because the invisible transactions on current and capital account between Hongkong, and Britain are kept ruthlessly invisible by the authorities, even if there were enough statistical information to estimate them sensibly. Hongkong is such a free market that this kind of calculation is' not very feasible. In practice most analysts conclude that there is probably a rough balance in payments between Britain and Hong- kong. But the British deficit in visible trade, and the growing pres- sure in Britain for protection against textile and other imports form Hongkong, may alter the climate. Furthermore it is some- times assumed, as by Louis Heren in The Times recently,3 that in 1997 Britain will have no alternative but gracefully to withdraw from Hongkong.
There are people on the left in British politics who believe that a British government should not attempt to be responsible for Hongkong if it is neither able nor willing to impose strong welfare legislation or political reforms. So it will not be easy for the British merely to maintain the status quo in order to cater for China's unexpected financial need. But there is a sense of responsibility to the 42 million Chinese who have opted, flatteringly, for the "British alternative," and it is this sense of responsibility, together with the glamour which attaches to running a place which has become so internationally famous and exciting, which should hold Britain steady on this course.
The Hongkong population itself has no voice, tragically on this question; it knows that if it organizes itself in any way to lobby towards one solution or another it will only provoke the People's Republic. The Chinese in Peking are willing to see Hongkong 2 "Britain's Chinese Take-Away," by Martin Woollacott, The Guardian (London) January 18, 1977.
3 "Profits and the Union Jack are still Flying High in Hongkong," by Louis Heren, The Times (London), March 14, 1977.
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