TNAG-1262-FCO40-1602-MPs--letters-on-the-future-of-Hong-Kong-1983 — Page 102

Rotary -Hong Kong South - 25th August 1983

It was suggested to me that I might give my views at this meeting on 1997 as being the hottest issue today in Hong Kong. I usually avoid this subject, though I do have Dy own views.

One of the most sensible statements I have seen on the subject of 1997 was a brief letter in the STANDARD on 14th June, 1983, written under the name "H.K. Compatriot".

In criticising a Legislative Council Member for wanting to retain a climate in which the member could "pursue his own wealthy life-style", this Chinese writer said: "But to most people in Hong Kong, stability means more like freedom from robbers, rapists, gangsters, violence in the streets and terror in the lifts, etc.. Prosperity means, free from the fear of how to educate children, how to find medical care when sick, how to keep from being thrown out by landlords, etc.."

As I move among people at the grassroots, these are the sentiments I most commonly find. The person on the street has little time to consider 14 years hence because the problems of 1983 press too heavily now. He may even be thinking, "Well, it couldn't be much worse than this anyhow!"

I hardly dare to voice my own views about 1997, because I don't want to join the army of crystal-ball gazers in Hong Kong who see only their own desires for the future, and not the whole picture for us all. In brief, I believe that sovereignty has never been in doubt.

I do not recognise the right of any country to colonise another through force of arms. I have considered, ever since I began teaching Chinese History over twenty years ago, that the Treaties were unequal and therefore invalid. Sovereignty and Treaties should never have been mentioned, unless in the form of an apology for past misdeeds, and I wrote and told Mrs. Thatcher so, after her visit last September. I reminded her that, as a trained lawyer, she must know that anything signed at gunpoint constitutes a crime, not a valid agreement.

As to what the future may hold under Chinese rule, I can only say that I believe that Hong Kong depends too much on China for raw materials and food, and China depends too much on Hong Kong for technology, for the Chinese to change any of the fundamentals of our way of life.

I would even hope that there might be some changes for the better. For example, under Chinese rule there may be scope for more honest business, and less liberty for criminal elements who threaten our stability. There may, hopefully, be fewer opportunities for making quick and easy profits. Any who leave Hong Kong because they can no longer exploit the worker or the tenant is welcome to leave: such persons are the founders of instability in any society.

Those who keep on taking about sovereignty, the possible renewal of the lease, the retention of the system under British control, and other disguised terms for keeping the colonial status, are merely rocking the economic boat NOW, confusing the issue, and causing uncertainty and panic.

I think that those who claims to speak for Hong Kong need more thought and tact. I heard the Governor on TV on his return from London in July, saying that he would repre- sent the Hong Kong people at the talks in Peking. It seemed a strange statement from a man who constitutionally represents the Queen, and who has no advisers elected by the Hong Kong people. It occurred to me the time that the Governor should have said he represented the British Government, not the Hong Kong people, unless he qualified which Hong Kong people he was referring to. It therefore came as no surprise when a spokesman in Peking said exactly that that the Governor would represent Britain, not the Hong Kong people. The colonial mentality dies hard, it seems; but it is essential, if the talks are to succeed, that the British representatives should be more sensitive to Chinese history and to the wounds inflicted on China by the outer barbarians (as we gwailos were called in those days).

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As to the advisers from the Executive Council, the Thatcher Government has shown them in no uncertain terms how much she respects their opinions by downgrading their passports.

What we need to do in preparation for the future is to get down to some constructive programmes NOW: more low-rent housing for the people who suffer in huts and private tenements, better education which will orientate the children towards their own culture, efforts to control inflation and rising prices, care for the mentally and physically disabled and the elderly, and so on. We must get out of the present doldrums and stop the race between the Government and big business to see which will manage to make most money between NOW and THEN. Skimping of public services, and squeezing more money from the public is one way of rocking the boat, in spite of all the glib assurances Given by Government officials.

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