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Mr. Ke completes tour: Quoting sources in London, Wen Wei Po said the Chinese Ambassador in London, Mr. Ke Hua, was expected to return to Beijing at the end of next month or early March on completion of his four-year tour. Mr. Ke had been saying farewell to FCO officials and other diplomats in London.
Coalition Government suggested: The English-language China Times published in Taiwan suggested in a commentary that HK should be placed under the tri-partite administration of China, Taiwan and HK. The coalition government should maintain HK's status quo and safeguard HK's social systems as well as its free port status. The HK question was a test to China to show its sincerity in reunifying with Taiwan.
Views on self-rule: In RTHK's Sunday Chinese programme, "In Perspective", pressure group leaders, Messers Yeung Sum (Meeting Point), Joseph Cheng (Observers), Fung Ho-lap (SOCO), Sze Chu-sian (HK Belongers), and Lee Yee (Seventies Monthly) generally agreed that the self-rule formula might be worked out if HK residents spoke up on the issue.
No early agreement: The SCMP correspondent in London, Michael Jones, reported on 17 January it was becoming apparent in Whitehall that British ministers did not expect a settlement of the Anglo-Chinese negotiations on HK's future for what had been described as "a year or two". A new reason given was the situation inside the Chinese leadership, with Mr. Deng Xiaoping being particularly important to the British assessment of the likely pace of progress. Ministers acknowledged that the maintenance of confidence inside HK would become more important as the months passed without conclusive news from Beijing. Jones wrote that according to the latest Whitehall view it seemed that little substantive progress was expected before Mrs. Thatcher called the next general election; she had spoken of the need for quick progress on HK's future, but Foreign Office opinion had been more cautious about the likely speed of the negotiations. From the little official comment to emerge in recent weeks it appeared that the issues at stake in the Beijing talks revolved more around HK's future administration than the question of sovereignty. The role of the HK dollar was seen as one of the essential guarantees of the territory's continued stability. Considerable importance was also being placed on a successful outcome of British efforts to secure Chinese contracts for the N-power station.
Chinese activists find voice in the West: An article in the International Herald- Tribune of 12 January said that China's struggling democracy movement, forced underground at home, had found a voice in North America with the publication of China Spring, a magazine edited by Chinese students overseas. The editor emphasised that similar publications had been banned in China and said all 6 500 issues of the inaugural issue sold out and that a new edition was being planned for HK. He said 20 000 copies of the next issue would be printed in HK and be ready for sale before Chinese new year when many HK residents travelled to China.
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