{
CONFIDENTIAL
39.
3 Despite improvements in bilateral relations between Britain and China and an apparent
acceptance of the status quo in Hong Kong, Chinese delegations at international organisations adhered to the line taken at the UN by Huang Hua in 1972. They continued to be alert to, and vociferously countered, any suggestion that Hong Kong was a sovereign or self-governing State. On 20 May 1975 the Chinese delegation to the 3rd meeting of the ICAO Middle East and South-east Asia Communications and Meteorology Regional Planning Group read out a prepared
statement to the effect that:
"The People's Republic of China consider that Hong Kong is part of China and reserve the right to speak for Hong Kong in future on
these matters".
40. Beginning in September 1976 with the death of Chairman Mao Zedong (Mao Tse-tung) and after the start of the campaign to oust the "gang of four" and its followers from power, the Chinese leadership has undergone a transformation. The emergence of broad new policy objectives concerning all the major spheres of Chinese development has been reflected in Chinese attitudes towards Hong Kong. The policies of the new regime are founded on ambitious economic targets requiring the wholesale "modernisation" of the Chinese economy and drawing, wherever necessary, on foreign expertise in the form of imports of technology and equipment.
It
is in this design that Hong Kong has been cast in an important role. Chinese attitudes towards Hong Kong came to be defined by the latter's value to China as a vital market for foreign exchange earnings, an entrepôt for Chinese foreign trade and a source of financial and commercial expertise.
/The
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