CONFIDENTIAL
5
-
Lord Belstead's "three legged table" metaphor and Mr. Wrigglesworth's assertion of continuing British rule would have no takers. While an absolute majority of HK people supported the motherland in regaining sovereignty, their worries, if any, were confined to the measures to be adopted to maintain prosperity and stability. There should not be any muddling of the two issues. People who continued to create confusion and cast a shadow on HK's future would act against the interests of both HK and Britain.
On three successive days, the New Evening Post devoted editorials to HK's future. On 18 January, the paper blamed Britain for delay in returning the "ball". Despite the fact that Britain played good football, recently the country was ill organised and the paper quoted an AFP despatch from London to the effect that the FCO had completely lost its morale as a result of Mrs. Thatcher making decisions on important foreign affairs. It also quoted the Daily Telegraph's remarks that Mr. Pym was so upset that he did not wish to touch anything once Mrs. Thatcher got involved. HK people did not wish to see any delaying tactics in the ball game and Britain should not dash the hopes of local residents wanting to find out as soon as possible what their future held. The following day, the paper said HK was gradually getting away from British rule and, yet, it was still forging ahead. HK had gained independence in trade talks, currency and travel documents. Britain would be booed by HK residents if it made a good match boring by adopting delaying tactics. The last of the three leading articles described as weird the suggestion from some quarters that China should recover the one million plus sq. km. of land from the Soviet Union before it tried to regain sovereignty over HK. The paper said no parallel should be drawn between the two issues, because the Sino-Soviet question was one of many border disputes inherited from history, while China had no border with Britain at all and the circumstances bringing about British Administration in HK were known to all. Hence it was beyond doubt that British rule should come to an end.
Ching Po joined the three principal left-wing papers in criticising Britain for delaying return of the ball. Britain had raised the HK issue first. This was followed by public opinion in HK to force Beijing to resolve the question in the shortest possible time. But it was wrong to surmise that China would forsake sovereignty to attract HK money, technology and foreign exchange for its modernisation. In another editorial, the paper said people outside China had gradually come to realise that the nightmare of the Cultural Revolution would not recur because conditions for such upheavals no longer existed in China. The flurry of comments in the left-wing press seemed to have convinced the independent Centre Daily News that for the sake of national pride China would definitely regain sovereignty over HK. It likened national pride to the reverse scales in the throat of the legendary "Great Dragon of the Orient" which would hurt anything that came into contact. However, the right-wing Kung Sheung Daily News and the independent Financial Daily thought otherwise. Kung Sheung said freedom of speech applied only to people who spoke on the same wavelength as Beijing. It observed that left-wing papers had commended Meeting Point's propositions which virtually recognised China's sovereignty claim, but poured
CON
CONFIDENTIAL
No comments yet.
Private notes are available after approval.