TNAG-1326-FCO40-1738-Future-of-Hong-Kong-Parliamentary-debates-1984 — Page 36

CONFIDENTIAL

3.

The agreement is the outcome of two years of complicated and often difficult negotiations. The Government entered into these negotiations with the Chinese Government in 1982

against the background of the historical realities which

determine Hong Kong's position today. In 1997 the lease on

the New Territories will run out: under that lease, unless

other arrangements were made 92 per cent of Hong Kong's land

area would revert to China. The ceded territories, making up

the remaining 8 per cent, could not survive as an entity in

their own right. They have over the years been completely integrated with the rest of Hong Kong. In these

circumstances there was no real choice for the Government.

To do nothing, which would in practice have meant the

reversion of the territory to China in 1997 without agreed

arrangements, was not really an option. The uncertainty in the meantime would have destroyed Hong Kong. It was clear that we had to seek, by negotiation with China, arrangements which would permit the maintenance after 1997 of Hong Kong's

stability and prosperity, and to seek to enshrine these arrangements in a formal agreement with China.

CONFIDENTIAL