TNAG-1040-FCO40-1290-Future-of-Hong-Kong-1981 — Page 13

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The Reform Club of Hong Kong

801 FU HING BUILDING,

10 JUBILEE STREET,

HONG KONG,

TEL.: 5-450001

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Reform Club's Proposal on Hong Kong Future (Press Release)

As was anticipated by the Reform Club of Hong Kong two or three years ago, the public is now getting worried over the future of Hong Kong after 1997.

The People's Republic of China, the British Government, the Hong Kong Government and the people of Hong Kong, the Club is sure, would like to maintain the basic status quo. The status quo of Hong Kong would benefit China in four ways:

1.

2.

Financially as Hong Kong is an international financial centre,

Economically as Hong Kong is an industrial town and has long experience in exporting to the whole world,

3. Technically because all the technical knowhows available in Hong Kong,

4. Strategically as Hong Kong will be an arterial channel in case China is blocked

by Soviet Union, Outer Mongolia and Vietnam.

However, the Club's fear is that the status quo of Hong Kong will fade away, even if China maintains that it will not do anything to upset it, because the underlying factors, which make Hong Kong prosperous as a free port that benefits China, will get less and less and the advantages to China of such status quo will be lost.

It is therefore imperative for some sort of agreement to be reached in the next two or three years so that the Government of China can announce publicly how Hong Kong should be dealt with. This is in line with the recent article by Mr. Alfred Sherman published in Hong Kong and the Reform Club has information that suggests he is the shadow speech- writer for the Prime Minister, Mrs. Margaret Thatcher. That article, the Club considers, is a semi-official opinion or direction by the British Government to the Hong Kong People. It states: "Just as the future of Great Britian is of primary concern to the people of Britian, the future of Hong Kong is of primary concern to the people of Hong Kong, however defined and delineated. The birds of the air have their nests, the people of Hong Kong have Hong Kong. If they do not think about its long-term future, no one else will do it for them. And if they think big and courageously, they will be bound to ask: What should we be doing now to prepare for whatever eventualities we may foresee? When they have thought about the future, they begin to think about how to make things happen: they will turn from the objects of history to subjects of history".