1982
14
22 March 1989]
[Chairman Contd]
MINUTES OF EVIDENCE TAKEN BEFORE
RT HON SIR GEOFFREY HOWE, QC, MR ROBIN MCLAREN, CMG, and MR ALAN PAUL
infinite because of its complexity and historical length, and we are more than ready to place further documents before you. It may well be that some of the questions you ask me will provoke only very limited responses because of the time and I may crave leave to put in some written material by way of supplementation on that. In answer to your general question, may I say that it is obviously right that Parliament should be continuing to take such a close interest in the implementation of the Joint Declaration affecting the future of Hong Kong as Parliament did in the progress for the negotiations and the Joint Declaration itself. Our objective then as now has been to secure for Hong Kong-this remarkable place as you described it- the prospect of prosperity and stability on an expanding scale into the future. When we started addressing that question back in 1984-the question then was not whether Hong Kong would revert to China, but on what terms it would do so. We started off from the fact that 92 per cent of the territory was due to revert to China under Treaty in 1997 without any safeguards or assurances at all. So it was of enormous importance for us to achieve the best possible result from those negotia- tions and I think it is right to remind the Commit- tee that the conclusion of the Joint Declaration was recognised at that time as a major achievement. It is worth reminding oneself of that by looking at extracts from the press, both in Hong Kong and in the UK and indeed worldwide, at this time. I emphasise the Joint Declaration because that remains the constant point of reference in all our discussions with the Chinese. Everything that we sought to achieve in the further agreement, every- thing we have so far agreed with them about Hong Kong's future, has been intended to be consistent with, and is fully consistent with, the provisions of the Joint Declaration. Currently we are witnessing the drafting, and indeed redrafting, of the Basic Law and that is a further step in this process of (not comma) of putting in place all the consequences which we seek
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from this Joint Declaration. I think it is right to acknowledge amongst the many remarkable features of Hong Kong to which you have referred the care and attention with which the People's Republic of China is now engaged in translating the Joint Declaration into a constitutional docu- ment of the kind that you no doubt have examined and will examine, so detailed and comprehensive in its scope and in such close consultation with the people of Hong Kong. Alongside that, of course, in which Her Majesty's Government is directly engaged, is the work of the Joint Liaison Group and the many other contexts, formal and informal, we have between Her Majesty's Government, the Government of Hong Kong and the Government of the People's Republic of China. That is the framework which we are seeking to deliver in all its manifestations the consequence of the Joint Declaration. It is the framework in which there has in fact been, as you have noted, a huge and continuing explosion of prosperity and economic growth during the last five years. One of the most surprising features of that has been the extent to which that economic development has been
Willin
[Continued
accompanied by the development of economic links between China and Hong Kong. Hong Kong is now China's largest export market. Over one third of its export earnings come from Hong Kong. Hong Kong is China's largest source of foreign investment and Chinese investment in Hong Kong is large and growing. I mention all that because it has two features about it. One, it emphasises the scale of the continuing success of Hong Kong in itself. It emphasises also the growth of the by now massive stake that China has got in the continuing success of Hong Kong. That is alongside our own intense interest in that same objective. All that has been achieved not by confrontation but by accepting the realities and by working hard to translate all the implications of the Joint Declar- ation into a future in which we from day to day and Hong Kong from day to day and in the future can make the most of the opportunities that are implicit in what has been achieved so far. We will continue to do absolutely everything we can in our power in every way that we can achieve it to ensure that Hong Kong remains a continuing success story, building on the foundations that are already there.
2. Thank you very much indeed, Sir Geoffrey. Obviously we would like to question you on a whole number of these issues that you have very clearly raised. I wonder if we could start on the work of the Joint Liaison Group. As you say, and, indeed, as your memorandum says, this is the main forum for implementing the provisions of the Joint Declaration. You mentioned that work is being done and progress in being made. Could you go in a little more detail into the progress and achievements of the Joint Liaison Group and exactly where it is now headed?
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(Sir Geoffrey Howe) Chairman, this is, as I have said, the main forum for intergovernmental dis- cussion on implementing the Joint Declaration. Since it was established in July 1985 it has had
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12 plenary meetings—indeed, one has just concluded in Peking but, of course, there have dash many meetings at expert level. Since 1 July last after Pelling year, when Hong Kong became the principal base of the JLG and both sides established their JLG offices in Hong Kong, there have been regular and offices frequent contacts between those officers. The main achievements of the JLG to date are set out in Annex B to the memorandum we have already submitted to your Committee. You will see they cover a wide range of matters, all of great import- ance to Hong Kong's future. Many of them are very technical and all of the achievements that have been made there have only been secured after detailed, complex and very hard negotiations. If I could give you just two or three examples by way of illustration, because that also indicates the way into the future as well, the first is membership of GATT. At the very first JLG meeting in 1985 we proposed that arrangements should be made for Hong Kong to be deemed a separate contracting party to GATT to ensure that her status in GATT would remain unchanged after 1997. The Chinese side initially resisted that proposal. They argued
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