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HONG KONG LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL — 14 March 1984
Against this background, the people of Hong Kong understandably would want to maintain the status we have worked so hard to build up, while str for greater heights within a framework of natural evolution and progress.
There have been different schools of thought regarding how the future of Hong Kong in relation to 1997 ever became an issue. In my view there was a combination of people, groups and interests in Hong Kong that prompted the start of the debate towards the end of the last decade. By the start of the Eighties it was quite evident that the issue was a problem that needed to be resolved, and unless visibility beyond 1997 could be cleared up with the Chinese government, Hong Kong could be quite disastrously, and perhaps permanently, damaged.
There has never been any doubt in my own mind what the people of Hong Kong want. We want to be the masters of our own destiny.
We want to know what the future holds for us and our next generation. Not only the multi-millionaires and the large business interests, but also the most modest of our people want to be assured that Hong Kong will offer the same development opportunities to the realization of aspirations as it always has done. In 1982 it was evident that both the British and the Chinese leaderships were ready to act. In the first half of the year Chinese leaders consulted prominent figures in our economic, academic and political world. How much weight was given to their advice will always remain a mystery. It was, however, an open secret that some of our multi-millionaires transferred huge assets from Hong Kong after their visits to Beijing. This fact could not have escaped the attention of those they had so sympathetically advised.
Mrs. THATCHER'S visit to China is now history, although the controversy over whether she should have gone will continue for as long as Hong Kong remains an issue. However, to the people of Hong Kong the most alarming moment occurred when immediately before his meeting with Mrs. THATCHER, Premier ZHAO Zi Yang announced to the world press China's intention to recover Hong Kong. When some reporters told him that the people of Hong Kong would be afraid, he remarked, 'What is there to be afraid of?"
The joint communique issued on September 24th of 1982 announced the agreement reached by the two countries to enter into talks through diplomatic channels regarding the solution of our future. The mention of the respective positions taken by the two sides, together with the NCNA announcement simultaneously released stressing the Chinese stance on sovereignty signified quite clearly that all was not well.
The months that followed must have been the saddest period in the history of Hong Kong.
On the one hand it was obvious that the Chinese were always prepared to say more than what the two parties had agreed to say together. Throughout this period we have been told of the Chinese stance and intentions, her plan for
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