UK EYES A
THIS IS A COPY
THE ORIGINAL HAS BEEN RETAINED IN THE DEPARTMENT UNDER SECTION 3 (4) OF THE PUBLIC RECORDS ACT 1958 and equipment, mentioned in the context of the Sino-Japanese long term trade
Increased
agreement. It is still unclear exactly how much will be ordered from other Western
countries but their recent foreign trade missions and some long term targets
announced for certain industries indicate fairly ambitious deliberations.
exports of oil could not alone pay for these imports and policy will therefore be
to expand all cources of foreign exchange earnings of which Hong Kong is, of course,
the most important.
China intends to
exploit Hong Kong as an access point for obtaining some of the advanced technology,
presumably this means using Hong Kong as a gathering point for commercial
intelligence.
24.
It was noticeable that despite the radicals' pre-eminence in 1975 and more so
in 1976 the Chinese policy of exploiting Hong Kong was apparently hardly affected
at all and no radical inspired statements about Hong Kong ever appeared. Even the
movement to diversify manufacturing interests (the Tsing Yi enterprise) was begun
in this period. This is probably an indication that the value of Hong Kong was so
self-evidently important that there was no political merit in attacking it. That
the Chinese government wishes the economic status quo to continue in Hong Kong, and
is well aware of the advantages of Hong Kong, had been shown in a number of statements
The October 1977 issue of Red Flag Minister of Foreign Trade,
contained an article by Li Chiang in which one of the main pointer the importance
of actively increasing the supplies ie exports to Hong Kong and Macao.
Liao Ch'eng-chih, a senior spokesman on foreign affairs, possibly with special responsibility for Hong Kong, /stated that the major role for Hong Kong is as a source of foreign exchange and to
assist in the acquisition of foreign technology. Li Hsien-nien, the Vice-Chairman
with, probably, responsibility for economic matters, was involved in a Hong Kong
cadre conference in December 1977, underlining the renewed emphasis in Peking's
view of Hong Kong as an increasingly valuable economic asset. And then in January
1978 at the opening of a new modern Chinese department store, the Deputy General
Manager of CRC spelt out his views (and he would not state them without official
sanction) that Hong Kong's future was assured both in terms of status and food
15 UK EYES A
No comments yet.
Private notes are available after approval.