TNAG-1896-FCO40-2690-Calls-on-Francis-Maude--Minister-of-State-for-Foreign-and-Co-1989 — Page 53

rental payments would need to be financed by Hong Kong itself, but would this not be fully worth the regained confidence, the absence of a need to emigrate and pay taxes in the new countries, the ability to transact ousiness better thanever before in and from Hong Kong without the worry of an imminent deadline, the opportunity to successfully evolve an adequate institutional democratic framework fitting for a thriving and prosperous city-state attuned to Western ideas and the rule of law but steeped in Oriental traditions?

Too commercial a solution? Maybe. Too unrealistic and politically naive? Perhaps not more so than the idea of the right of abode in the United Kingdom for the many millions of Hong Kong people. Of course we do not live in a perfect world, nor obviously in one that has as yet managed to fully recognise or overcome the dogmatic mistakes of the past. But Hong Kong of all places should be better able to argue a good deal when it sees one, instead of wallowing in self-pity or engaging in day-dreaming. What we can least afford are a greater loss of confidence, a return of corruption, or xenophobia. We shall very quickly have to snap out of our despondency and think a bit more positively, or will soon see the beginning of the end of the Hong Kong as we know and love it. Those who survive are usually those who help themselves and not rely too much on others.