TNAG-1891-FCO40-2684-Visits-by-Sir-Geoffrey-Howe-and-by-Douglas-Hurd--Secretaries-1989 — Page 44

QURATION:

TRANSCRIPT B: FORRIGE 88C

P.C. FAG KONG 4 JULY 1989

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Sir Geoffrey, do you not notice that the Chinesa.

at your

visit yesterday afternoon put on a big banner saying:

"Immigration

????" With the mind of the Hong Kong people occupied with the idea

of emigration every day, do you feel that the prosperity and

stability that the Joint Declaration promised could be maintained?

PURKIGI SECRETARY:

A

<

I understand, as I have said already, the extent to which

people in Hong Kong are concerned with the citizenship right of

abode issue, but I believe that the people of Hong Kong certainly

those to whom I have spoken have now a clearer and better under-

standing of the impossibility of Britain offering to sign a blank

cheque for 3, 4 or 5 million people and indeed, the more people in

Hong Kong seek to impress upon us the importance they attach to that

proposition, in a sense the more reckless it would become to offer

an insurance policy of that kind. That is why i said in my

Statement today that we shall be seeking to engage the interest of

other countries around the world in coming to the assistance of hong

Kong so far as possible if that need should ever arise.

QUESTION (VALL STREET JOURNAL):

I believe that Prime Minister Thatcher's Goverment has some

appreciation of the importance of elections as an institutional

means of making puople's needs known and allowing them to defend

their rights. Can you explain to me the logic behind whatever

you have ide not to call full elections to the Legislature for

instance by the end of this year?