TNAG-1460-FCO40-1984-Future-of-Hong-Kong-Sino-British-Joint-Declaration-post-rat-1986 — Page 8

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BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY STATEMENTS

AVA

24/3.

The time has come to revise the dossier of British Foreign Policy Statements which News Department distribute on a six monthly basis to posts abroad.

1.

2. I attach the current entry for Hong Kong. I should be grateful if you would let me know by close of play on 25 March if you think that the existing entry should be changed, or added to, by the inclusion of more recent material.

3. In general, we like to keep the material as current as possible but there is, of course, no point in changing an ageing entry if it continues to be the definitive statement of our policy on a subject.

Sal

S Palmer

News Department W21 233 8618

21 March 1986

HMM 040/17 ник

RECEIVED IN REGISTRY

2 5 MAR 1986

REGISTRY

PA

Action Taken

DESK OFFICER INDEX

- 50 -

HONG KONG

The agreement which the British and Chinese Governments have published

today in London, Peking and Hong Kong, is an historic and remarkable

one. It sets out in considerable detail the framework in which a

complex and sophisticated community of 5 million people will live

and work under Chinese sovereignty in the 50 years up to the year

2047.

Much of the importance

and indeed, much of the achievement of the

agreement lies in its detail, and much of the debate in the weeks

་

to come, especially in Hong Kong, will rightly focus on the details. Today

is not the day for that. It is for reading and understanding the

agreement as a whole, so I do not propose to summarize or describe the

agreement. To be understood, it needs to be read in full.

I want,

instead, to underline 5 points.

First, the aim which has guided the British and Chinese negotiators is the maintenance of the stability and prosperity of Hong Kong. The

agreement provides for a very high degree of continuity and autonomy. It enshrines the imaginative concept of one country, two systems. Hong Kong's distinctive economic and social systems and life-style, so different from those in the mainland of China, will remain unchanged.

These are the characteristics which have contributed to Hong Kong's

success in the past. Their preservation is the best way to ensure

Hong Kong's continued success in the years up to and beyond 1997.

For a unique society, unique arrangements have been worked out.

Second, we have enshrined the result of our negotiations in an inter-

national agreement binding in all its parts. The policies recorded in the agreement will be stipulated in the basic law of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, to be passed by China's National People's

Congress. It will be the basis on which Hong Kong will be run for 50

years after 1997.

Third, the administration of Hong Kong will be in local hands. It will have an executive accountable to an elected legislature. Its existing legal system, with a court of final appeal in Hong Kong, a public service

on present lines, and its own finances.

/Fourth

- 51

Fourth, Hong Kong will be able to continue as a world comercial.

financial and communications centre. It will be responsible for its

own external trade. It will retain its own currency, the Hong Kong

dollar. There will be no exchange control.

Investors will be free,

as now, to move their capital in and out. The future Special Administrative Region will be able to participate in agreements like

the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade. It will make its own

shipping policy and enjoy a significant degree of autonomy in civil

aviation matters. In short, Hong Kong will be able to play the

distinctive dynamic role that it plays today. It is important that

Hong Kong's trading partners round the world recognise that.

Finally, the question which many are already asking is how can you be sure that the agreement will work and that both sides will implement it. The simplest answer is that this is a formal, legally binding

agreement, the highest form of commitment that can be entered into

between two sovereign states. Both the British and Chinese Governments

take pride in their impressive record for observing international

agreements. Moreover, the agreement takes proper account of the

interests of both sides, including the enormous interests that Britain and China share in Hong Kong's continuation as the dynamic society it is today. This is a society that the people of Hong Kong

have themselves created. Its future depends mainly on their talent, their industriousness and their confidence. It is they who have made

Hong Kong the third biggest financial centre in the world, the world's third biggest container port and an economy with one of the most consistently rapid rates of growth. They are now being asked to judge

this agreement for themselves.

I will be having another meeting with Foreign Minister Wu Xueqian later this morning. For both of us, today marks the end of many months of intensive negotiations in which we have been very personally involved. It also marks the beginning of a much longer period of

cooperation between the British and Chinese Governments on the basis

of still closer and warmer relations to ensure the best possible conditions for Hong Kong's entry into the 21st century.

There has

This agreement is the result of long and hard negotiation. been give and take on both sides, but negotiation has always had as

its basis the excellent relations that exist between Britain and China

and the joint determination of both governments to maintain Hong Kong's stability and prosperity.

/The