Walter M. Sulke
O.B.E. J.P.
1st Floor, Bonaventure House, Leighton Road, Hong Kong. G.P.O. Box 1317, Telegrams: 'WALSULKE'. Telex: 71871 Telephone: 5-7957288
December 1981
The
I am constantly being asked what happens to Hong Kong in 1997 the date on which the New Territories lease runs out. simple answer is that it is too early to ask the question.
However, I can see three scenarios and as background one has to delve a little into history: Macao was given to the Portugese, about a hundred years before Columbus discovered America, by a Chinese Government then ruling one of the greatest Empires known, on the assumption that some trade with the barbarians should be encouraged but, at the same time, it would be a good thing if these barbarians looked after themselves and were kept as far away from the Capital as possible So Macao has never been Portugese, it has always been Chinese Territory under Portugese administration. The Chinese view of Hong Kong is beginning to be similar although, of course, the circumstances are quite different since Hong Kong Island and the tip of the Peninsula were taken by the British in the 1840s and the New Territories lease was exacted as a punishment for the Chinese Government's inability to control its own revolutionaries at the turn of the century. Given the Chinese attitude that the treaties under which Hong Kong was ceded and the New Territories leased are unequal treaties and are therefore not recognised by the Chinese Government, the Lease cannot expire and the date of 1997 is therefore irrelevant except for the legal quibble which will have to occupy Westminster at some time or another since the lease is enshrined in an act of parliament which would have to be amended. There is a lopsided parallel in the present tranfer of the Canadian Constitution from Westminster to Canada. Incidentally, this view of the Hong Kong treaties has been held by all Chinese Governments, Nationalist or Communist, and the nature of the Chinese Government will, therefore, not have any influence on the legal aspect of the problem.
The reason why I said above that it is really too early to ask the question is that there is no way of forecasting what the Chinese Government in about 1997 is going to look like. Let us assume, however, that the present Government line will continue and that China will therefore be moving to the Right to some kind of Socialist free enterprise a la Yugoslavia or even further to a return of capitalism. Concurrently, one would expect the free zones contiguous with Hong Kong to grow in importance. A conurbation would grow rapidly absorbing the twin cities of Canton and Hong Kong, with the border between the two just as rapidly disappearing, with a Hong Kong underground railway going out to Shenzhen and light railway systems reaching out further into the Chinese countryside from various Hong Kong new towns, and express motorways criss- crossing the territories between Canton and Hong Kong with
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