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Hong Kong Bill
21 JANUARY 1985
to maintain economic prosperity—the “one country, two systems" that we have heard so much about? I believe that it is almost inevitable that they will seek the greater triumph of trying to prove to a disbelieving world that Hong Kong can remain prosperous under a social and legal, though not necessarily economic, Communist system. Why should they not want to do so? They will want to persuade the rest of the world that Communism works; that, with its necessary economic variation, it works.
Mr. Johnston: Taiwan.
Mr. Lawrence: Taiwan is an excellent reason why the Chinese should be willing-in fact enthusiastic—to try to show that Communism will be effective in Taiwan as it is in Hong Kong.
I also fear that if sufficient people in Hong Kong feel threatened with the loss of their freedom, as everywhere else in the Communist world, they may seek to leave Hong Kong in sufficient numbers and with sufficient of their investments and technological know-how to destroy its prosperity and leave China a hollow shell.
It is certain that the Chinese will therefore have to try a little harder, perhaps a lot harder, to reassure the people of Hong Kong and international investors. There is little alternative to a commitment to a written bill of rights, and the fundamental freedoms will have to be enshrined in a constitutional document that defines the basic law. That basic law will have to be clear, detailed and as near as possible free from doubt. That may be what is intended by the negotiators. However, more than that, there will need to be a proper system of guaranteeing those fundamental rights, because the Soviet Union has given us ample proof of how worthless constitutions can be without the machinery of guarantee.
Therefore, there will need to be some sort of constitutional supreme court, not just a supreme court that is the ultimate court of appeal, but a constitutional court similar to the Supreme Court in the United States. That is very different from anything in the British system, because we do not have a written constitution: Such a court, made up of judges from Hong Kong and consistent with Chinese sovereignty, would have two important tasks. One would be to resolve disputes about the meaning of the elements of the basic law, so that the differences that may exist between what we mean by phrases and what the Chinese mean by phrases were properly adjudicated upon. Secondly, it would be a function of the court to ensure that any Chinese laws, ordinances or regulations emanating from Peking would not conflict with the fundamental freedoms laid down in the basic law and written constitution.
The right hon. and learned Member for Aberavon (Mr. Morris) came close to mentioning the issue of guaranteeing fundamental freedoms, but no one else has. I consider it to be terribly important. Perhaps the negotiators are negotiating about it. Perhaps we have no reason to have such fears or doubts. Perhaps the Government in China already have a plan for making sure that those fundamental freedoms are properly enshrined and defined and will be guaranteed, but, just in case they do not, the attention of the House should be directed to the importance of the issue.
I should have liked such provisions to be incorporated into schedule to the Bill to inspire the necessary
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confidence, so that all the world might see that we are not just casting away the fundamental liberties and human rights of 5 million or 6 million people who were formerly our responsibility. It might have been possible for the Government of China to agree to such an enshrinement so that they could be seen to be committing themselves with their good faith and intentions, on fundamental rights.
Of course, there can be no ultimate guarantee that the spirit, still less the actual Government of Deng Xiaoping will survive the likely cycles of political power in China over the next 13 years, so trust and good will are of the essence. I am sure that the 40 or so British Members of Parliament who recently visited Hong Kong will confirm that the people of the colony are more worried about their freedom than about their economic future, but the two are directly linked. I am sorry that so far little has been said about the preservation of those fundamental freedoms. I hope that the Government will give an undertaking that in the negotiations that are still going on they will endeavour to get the Chinese Government to commit themselves to providing the necessary procedural guarantees.
Hong Kong's prosperity rests, in the last resort, on confidence alone. If there are no sufficient guarantees that freedom, in its various forms, will remain, that confidence will not endure past any Hong Kong spring. China will be left with that hollow shell, and its hope of technological and economic achievement in the 21st century will be dashed.
8.9 pm
Mr. Richard Needham (Wiltshire, North): I should like to confine my remarks to that part of the Bill, especially paragraph 2 of the schedule, which deals with the issue of nationality and to concentrate on the views expressed by the right hon. Member for South Down (Mr. Powell) and other hon. Members with similar views. In the Hong Kong debate on 5 December 1984, the right hon. Member for South Down said:
"But it is one thing for the Government to say that the new status will not give these people the right of abode in the United Kingdom. It is another to ignore the increasing pressure that will be brought to bear on the United Kingdom if we confer the kind of status adumbrated in this document, to admit its holders liberally and freely to the United Kingdom from Hong Kong in coming years, both before and after 1997.” He went on:
"By what is proposed here we are incurring a virtually unlimited, though unacknowledged, liability to cede to pressure, a liability which could be of great consequence for our own future." -[Official Report, 5 December 1984; Vol. 69, c.
407.]
The right hon. Gentleman has elaborated on that position today. As I understand it, it means that he and other hon. Members including my hon. Friend the Member for Orpington (Mr. Stanbrook), are afraid that between 1997 and probably, or possibly, thereafter a large number of Hong Kong people will wish to establish a right of abode in the United Kingdom. Even if they do not wish to live here, a large number of them might want to come here. The British Government's proposals not only do not make it any less clear to the people of Hong Kong that they will not be entitled to come here, but are a move towards a liability to be pressured to allow those people to come here. I suggest that there are serious flaws in the views of those hon. Members in considering not only the people of Hong Kong but the United Kingdom.
It is argued that people will wish to come to live in Britain either because of changed economic circumstances
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