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The SCMP Business News reported on May 30 that officials from China's southeastern Zhejian province were seeking permission to open an office in HK to provide a direct trading channel for local businessmen who at present had to travel to Zhejiang if they wanted to establish contacts there.
Letters: A letter signed "UK citizen and HK Belonger". which appeared in the SCMP on May 26, praised Mr. T.L. Tsim's letter ("Everybody trying to get in on the 1997 act") and a leading article in the paper ("Red carpet for local entrepreneurs") which the writer said were really a breath of fresh air in the present depressed and gloomy political weather of HK.
There were two letters in the SCMP on May 30: one written by Jutti Sharpe commented on a recent article about education by Margaret Ng and said she was surprised that it did not mention education in connection with 1997, especially as the newly proposed ideas (by the international panel of experts), if carried out, presumably would last for more than 14 years; the other letter from the ubiquitous “HK Belonger" suggested that Chinese landlord and British tenant seemed to be THE solution for the HK problem.
A letter in the Standard on May 27 from Mans Sena said it was beginning to look like the British Government (here and in London) was trying desperately to squeeze concessions out of China on the 1997 issue.
Former SCMP staff member, Mr. Israel Epstein, who was recently appointed to the National Committee of the CPPCC, had a letter in the Post on May 27 which said his appointment would be better understood by readers if they had been informed that for 26 years Mr. Epstein had been a Chinese citizen.
Also in the Post on May 27 was a letter from Russell Spurr saying the former Governor, Lord MacLehose, was wrong to seek iron-clad safeguards against any future changes in Chinese political policy; surely, Lord MacLehose knew enough about Chinese politics to realise this was impossible as no country could confidently predict which direction its policies would take in five, let alone in 14 years from now.
A letter from "Reader” of Montreal, which appeared in the Far Eastern Economic Review of June 3, said China's most suitable sponsor in the western world might well be Britain which was, after all, the first major nation to recognise the People's Republic. Increased friendship between the two countries would not only be a balancing act from a global perspective, it would also decisively help China's modernisation through HK. Currently, HK provided China with US$6 billion of foreign exchange a year, a sum close to China's entire military budget of Rmb 17.5 billion. What could be realistically and tactically more beneficial to China than to keep HK substantially in its present form?
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