TNAG-1318-FCO40-1722-Future-of-Hong-Kong-views-and-involvement-of-the-European-Co-1984 — Page 39

D

Press Review

HKK

040/20.

RECEIVED IN REGISTRY

1 5 NOV 1984

DSSK OFFICER

October 1984

INDEX

PA

129

2

3

Coverage of Hong Kong in the European press dropped considerably in October after last month's bonanza of reports in the wake of the initialling of the Draft Agreement. Some longer articles, for the most part analyses and opinions of the Agreement, appeared however in major papers and periodicals throughout Europe.

The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ), Germany's most important and influential nationally read daily, carried three articles by different authors this month. The first, by Heinz Stadlmann - Brussels correspondent who was recently in Hong Kong under Lufthansa auspices - quoted from Annie Wong's (Economic Services Branch) evidently very explicit briefing on the economy, Len Dunning's statement on trade and the views of Yangtzekiang's Marketing Director, T C Chiang, on the Hong Kong textile industry. A renewed confidence in the future is gaining ground, he notes, and cites the words of a Hong Kong banker who asks: "Would the PRC be investing such large sums in Hong Kong business, especially property companies, when it all could be had at no cost in thirteen years?"

"amnesty"

Entitled "Many Uncertainties Remain", the second piece by Siegfried Thielbeer took the form of an analysis of the Agreement, pointing out that although "British politicians had told Hong Kong's population that the Agreement would not be modified, many had made the effort to read the 'small print'" Thielbeer notes that the Agreement makes no mention of an for the vast number of Hong Kong people who fled China after 1945 and indicates as one of the "uncertainties

one of the "uncertainties" the separate memoranda on citizenship, the Chinese one stating that all Hong Kong passport holders are Chinese nationals notwithstanding and the British one speaking of the right of BDTCs to a "new status" after 1997. He voices too the fear that, should Peking so wish, a different interpretation could be later attributed to some of the less explicit clauses. (Review of the third article appears in the Economic/Financial section of this annex. (st (P)

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Germany's only serious daily orientated towards the SPD, Frankfurter Rundschau, published a straightforward 1,800 word article by Mario Müller, a further member of the September Lufthansa sponsored group visit to Hong Kong. He had grudging praise for what he calls "Hong Kong's early capitalism" and the role of the British (sic) who "limit themselves to the role of economic nightwatchmen" in the Government's non-intervention policy.

The leading intellectual Hamburg-based weekly paper, Die Zeit, carried a short article by Matthias Nass under the title borrowed from the South China Morning Post, "Clapping with One Hand". He writes that the British have in fact negotiated far reaching

not

strictly time,

/concessions