I regret to have to say this, but in my forty years of living in Hong Kong I have never been as pessimistic about Hong Kong's future as I am now. When talking to people here, and I do talk to a lot of people, there is a noticable hopelessness about the future. It is not just the great many of the brighter and well trained people who will be leaving Hong Kong to emigrate elsewhere, it is those who will be staying, or who will have to stay, who are beginning to lose their diligence and hence their sense of responsibility, shrugging their shoulders and saying: "Why should we work when after 1997 there won't be anything left here?" And, of course, that attitude leads to many becoming dishonest to try and make as much as possible before 1997. It is the psychological-moral atmosphere which has deteriorated here so markedly in the last two and a half months, and it must therefore be made very clear to everyone in Beijing that unless something is done very very quickly, the situation will deteriorate much further. And what must especially be made clear is that action now on that front is entirely up to Beijing and has nothing whatsoever to do with the British or Americans, or whoever else the Cadres in Beijing are now trying to blame.
Of course we, in Hong Kong, also have a major part to play. On the one hand we have to make ourselves so indispensible to Beijing in the next five years that even the non-expert reds will realise they need us. On the other, we will have to go much further in internationalising the city. This may sound odd coming from someone who started a localisation policy in his own company more than twenty years ago, but I think it is now time to import more expatriates to diversify the nationalities. The more nationalities we have, the better. I would like to see something like 5% of the population to be non-Chinese. The more foreigners there are here the more difficult it will be for Beijing after 1997 to break the joint agreement. And the more nationalities represented, the better our international networks, the more business connections we establish with other countries, the better for our trade.
I would also like to see the establishment of an International Council of Chambers of Commerce. Each national Chamber of Commerce, and we do have quite a few and one would hope that we will get a few more, i.e. the Japanese, the American, the British, the Portuguese, etc. elect one of their members to sit on this International Council and this International Council makes joint representations to the Hong Kong SAR Government when they consider this necessary. Obviously such a joint body would have far more influence than the individual Chambers by themselves.
Before it hands over to the SAR the British Hong Kong Government has a great role to play in making this a truly international city. All laws and regulations should be made with a view to facilitate international operations whether these be financial, insurance, or trade, and the present administration should improve their present policy towards their own overseas staff and localisation in general. It would take a separate speech to really say what is necessary to turn this city into a truly international place of business, but I hope you get the idea.
It is in this context that the present negotiations with Beijing on the Basic Law becomes even more important.
One hopes that recent reports brought back by the group of conservative businessmen from Beijing were coloured by their often expressed very conservative stand against any kind of democratic development in Hong Kong. To remind you, the report they brought back said inter alia that the Chinese high officials in the Hong Kong and Macau Office in Beijing were now under pressure not to make any more concessions to Hong Kong and indicated that they
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