TNAG-1263-FCO40-1606-Parliamentary-contacts-on-the-future-of-Hong-Kong-1983 — Page 141

DRAFT

"A quarrel between Hong Kong and Canton is like a quarrel

between the mouth and the belly. If they fight, the whole

body suffers". Thus General Li Chai-sum, Governor of Canton

Province, half a century ago. The General was a sensible

man, and his point is still valid.

#

But today, the first priority is that neither we nor the

Chinese should look backwards. The negotiations are about

the future of the Colony, not the past. I would respectfully

suggest, for example, that Peking might worry more about

today's HK Dollar, and less about yesterday's treaties.

does no-one any good to talk (or rather shout) down the

dollar, or to hold Britain up as ravenous neo-colonials.

It

The second point to be clear-eyed about the economic

interests of each party. These are not quite what they seem.

We should go a little easy on the argument that Hong Kong

is indispensable to China, for two reasons.

The first is that China would not lose all her income if

she were rash enough to try to run Hong Kong herself. The

figure of 40% of her foreign exchange is tossed about. But

much of this comes from re-exports and would continue to flow

to China, even in the worst case. The meal you eat in a

Chinese restaurant here will put foreign exchange into

Peking's pocket who ever governs Hong Kong, because many

1.