TNAG-1847-FCO40-2622-House-of-Commons-Select-Committee-on-Foreign-Affairs-enquiry-1989 — Page 4

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Mr. Taylor said that he wondered if we were in danger of following rather than leading public opinion. He wondered if we had entered a new era of HKG and HMG deferring to China's wishes on all major issues - e.g. we did not rebut Chinese statements about our Vietnamese policy which amounted to internal interference. We also seemed to have no clear policy about investment after 1997, e.g. in our continuing to defer a decision on a new airport. These were concerns which had been expressed to him by expatriate Hong Kong residents. The Governor said it was interesting that these examples had been put to him because they were both way off beam. The reality was that we had taken up the Chinese publicly on their statements about the Vietnamese issue. He had done so himself. investment it was striking how much post-1997 investment there already was. Both the Eastern Harbour and Tate's Cairn tunnels had pay-back periods beyond 1997 as did current investment in expanding the container terminal. We had deferred a decision on the airport in 1983 because of the recession. We now intended to make a decision on the various studies by the end of this year. He anticipated that this would probably be positive. It was possible that people took this view of the HKG because we did not go on to the hustings nor announce sudden shifts of policy. We listened to public views and then adjusted our policy where appropriate. One reason for taking this approach was that we were not an elected government emerging from a party political battle.

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Mr. Temple-Morris asked about nationality. Others were being more generous than the UK. Were we losing out? The Governor explained that this was a subject of considerable bitterness especially in 1981. The availability of EC passports to Portuguese residents in Macau had revived the issue as had the Committee's own visit. The UK were losing out in as much as people who had looked to the UK were now looking elsewhere and would establish economic links with other countries in future. Mr. Jopling asked which groups were most affected if the UK policy did not change.

The Governor said that the three groups most affected were:-

(i) the educated middle class who were able to move and who met the criteria of other receiving countries;

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(ii) those at risk in sensitive posts, and

(iii) those who had worked for the Crown for many

years or were otherwise associated with

- British Administration.

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