TNAG-1396-FCO40-1868-Future-of-Hong-Kong-Basic-Law-1985 — Page 83

FCO40 Hong Kong Department Records 聯邦事務部香港部檔案 All

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people to govern Hong Kong, it enjoys the highest degree of autonomy. The central government would manage your own affairs. Certainly we would station troops in the territory, but the troops are only symbolic. If we don't send troops to the territory and only try to handle the situation when problems arise, then even Hong Kong would not find it easy to handle it by itself. It is better to have some troops, but the army would of course be a very small one.

Is the basic law in contradiction with the

Constitution? Which article of the Constitution of the People's Republic of China would be applicable? Article 31 would be applicable. Article 31 provides that the National People's Congress is empowered to establish Special Administrative Regions. Apart from this, all the Articles of the Constitution are implemented in China, but for you, only Article 31 is applicable. We pursue socialism in our country, but the HKSAR pursues capitalism and will maintain its capitalist system. Why is this so?

Is it because the People's Republic of China has lost its principles? Is it because we have discarded our principles in order to solve the Hong Kong issue? No, Article 31 of our Constitution

shows that we deal with matters in accordance with

dialectical materialism and historical materialism.

whatever we do, our nation acts in accordance with "seeking truth from facts", and we have also taken into full consideration Hong Kong's actual situation. Which

country in the world could have thought out a better method of dealing with such a matter, or a better settlement, than the Joint Declaration? I should say there is no other country, this is the best method. least we can say that it is a pretty good way. We can

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