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change and we must adapt to it and learn to profit from it. What must be avoided was destabilising change.
The SCMP also said the Thatcher visit to China had resulted in all good omens of the Year of the Dog being locked up in a kennel - but give the pig his due, and with time and patience he would ferret them out. As the Governor had said in his new year message, the SCMP was sure that a satisfactory solution would somehow be found to the problem of HK's future. In its editorial the following day, the paper said that, while discussions in Beijing were vital to our long-term future, the present was more important.
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PROPAGANDA OFFENSIVE:
In the wake of a lengthy paper by a Chinese historian on how HK was taken over by Britain, three more articles about HK were published in China in the fortnight under review. The articles dealt with: HK's historical background; China's intention of turning HK into an SAR; HK's economy; and the question of patriotism. Summaries of these articles, released by Xinhua, were prominently reported by major Chinese-language papers, notably the left-wing press. On 11 February, a Xinhua despatch said an article in a Beijing tabloid, "The Legal System in China", which was designed to explain the law in layman's terms to the public, reiterated that Article 31 of the new Constitution provided a legal basis for reunification with HK and Taiwan over which China had sovereignty. The article, written by a law professor at the Foreign Affairs Institute, Mr. Chen Tijiang, also asserted that the SAR model was applicable to both HK and Taiwan and there should be no outside interference in handling these two issues. Apart from carrying a summary on its front page, Wen Wei Po also published in full the article, while Ta Kung Pao said editorially it was a forceful argument against those who advocated that sovereignty should be separated from administrative control.
Xinhua also reported a commentary in the latest issue of the Chinese communist party magazine, "Red Flag", which said that every Chinese, whether he lived in mainland China, Taiwan, HK, Macau, or overseas, should be patriotic. Today, patriotism meant anti- hegemonism, realisation of reunification of the motherland and the promotion of modernisation.
On 16 February, major papers published a short agency report saying the Economic Daily in Beijing had published special articles about HK's economy. The following day, Wen Wei Po published in full these articles which took up half a page. The lead story gave a rundown of HK's economic activities in 1982 including the 20-year loan mortgage scheme offered by major banks which extended beyond 1997. It said despite the economic slump foreign investment was still active. Four factors made HK a successful international financial centre: a. stable political environment; b. geographical position; c. economic prosperity and development; d. encouraging Government policies.
In other stories, the paper analysed the success of HK as a financial centre and published figures from the 1980 census in HK about population growth, family size, age groups, household income and expenditure. All the articles were factual and based on HK Government statistics. Wen Wei Po said in its leader that they showed China was paying great attention to working out effective ways of maintaining the prosperity of HK. The
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