354
14 June 1989]
[Mr Taylor Contd]
MINUTES OF EVIDENCE TAKEN BEFORE
RT HON SIR GEOFFREY HOWE, QC, MP, MR R MCLAREN and MR A Paul
identify. If we have been seeking to create a future for Hong Kong, it has surely been sensible for us to promote the kind of expansion of personal, human, social, cultural, commercial, diplomatic relations we have seen over the last ten years. This Committee has been considering the very same problem in relation to Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. The whole burden of your advice has been that we should seek to do that but with the utmost caution, with the utmost sense of reality currently in relation to the peace of Europe. HM Government has been facing some criticism for having placed too much emphasis on the need to maintain a cautious vigilance. It is a matter of striking the right balance all the time and nobody is less starry-eyed about some of the attitudes of the Chinese we have to deal with than I am, but it does not mean we do not have to try.
Mr Lawrence
953. To Michael Jopling you explained very convincingly that the Joint Declaration is the best way forward and we all here share your desire to achieve success for the people of Hong Kong and their aspirations, but looked at from their point of view do you not accept that they see two different problems: first, that there is a difference between the prosperity of Hong Kong for the future and the security of the people in Hong Kong for the future, and although there is a relationship between the two it is their security they are predominantly con- cerned with, whereas while we here think that the prosperity of the future of Hong Kong will, as it were, trigger security they are not so sure about it. The second matter that I think concerns them is that it is all very well to say that the Joint Declar- ation is the sensible way forward but that is the second stage of the reasoning process. The first stage of the reasoning process is, can we trust the Chinese? If we can trust the Chinese then the Joint Declaration is the best way forward, but if we can- not trust the Chinese why is the Joint Declaration the best way forward? Should we not actually be concentrating our attention at this time, as we are being asked, upon the security and safety of the people of Hong Kong rather less than on the pros- perity and the presumption of trust which so mani- festly does not exist today?
(Sir Geoffrey Howe) Yes, certainly. Before I answer you perhaps I should say I did not mean to be too reproachful in my response to Mr Taylor in the way I was describing our reaction to this. I fully share your deep sense of anxiety. All I am saying is we have to build on such footholds and found- ations as we have, remembering all of them are potentially insecure, which is the very same point Mr Lawrence is raising now. You cannot actually separate them out. None of us is so foolish as to believe that by creating all the agencies of economic prosperity you thereby secure security or stability. We have tried in our discussions with the Chinese leadership to emphasise to them that there is a link between the two. We have tried to emphasise that you cannot expect to maintain the basic confidence that is necessary to economic prosperity unless you
[Continued
are prepared to respect the central human rights propositions. That is why we have tried to link them together. But I can quite understand now hour security in the most literal personal sense is more dominant in the minds of people living in Hong Kong. One then has to address oneself to the real- ities of the security there—the fact that it is a tiny percentage of the Chinese land mass and a tiny percentage of the Chinese population—and recog- nise that one must try and build security on the foundations of economic self-interest and sanity. You say if we cannot trust them what is the point of the Joint Declaration.
954. That is what they say to us.
(Sir Geoffrey Howe) One does not have the choice of saying, “Right, we cannot trust them so there is no point in having a Joint Declaration.' One is saying nobody can be sure how far, how long one can trust the uncertainties as to government of the kind which Mr Taylor has described, but granted that massive and permanent uncertainty and insecurity, we are building something that has a better prospect of maintaining confidence if we try to lock it into something like the Joint Declar- ation. If we try to say to the Government of China, whatever its nature, “Look, not just just your econ- omic self-interest should lead you to sustain Hong Kong but your interest in maintaining your national reputation as a nation that has some respect for its international obligations," that puts an additional strut, but I am not foolish as to think it is a complete answer, there is no such thing. It is an attempt to produce more confidence in a world where complete confidence cannot be assured.
Mr Rowlands
955. If we can negotiate to the point where we have the translation of the Joint Declaration into the Basic law, this will have considerable scope for reinforcing, altering or amending the position. For example, some of the worries and concerns given to us over the last few weeks before this happened now seem to me to have real force and Hong Kong opinion is right to stress it. I put an example to you. We have seen the character of Chinese justice on our television screens, which is summary justice, or injustice, on television. How, therefore, can we possibly endorse Article 157, for example, of the Basic Law, which says that the power of interpretation of that law, which is actually a trans- lation of the Joint Declaration into Chinese law, should be vested entirely in the Standing Commit- tee of the National People's Congress? People were worried about this clause before these events. They now should be absolutely desperately concerned about such a clause.
(Sir Geoffrey Howe) Yes, you are quite right that the events of recent weeks underline the reasons for anxiety, as we discussed at the last meeting here, and provide additional reasons for seeking to achieve through the Basic Law drafting structure when it comes back into operation the most favourable possible interpretation of the Joint Dec- laration in the Basic Law, and Article 157 is a
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