SEAAGL
NEW YORK TIMES EDITORIAL, 9 JUNE : DRAFT REPLY
* 1.
"Hong Kong deserves a British roar", declared an editforial in
this newspaper on 9 June. "Is there no roar left in the old British
lion?" With all respect to that venerable beast, I hardly think an angry roar is likely to further Hong Kong's cause in present
circumstances : Hong Kong deserves much more than that.
and
2. Of course we were appalled, as was the international community as a whole, at the bloody brutal way in which Tiananmen Square was finally cleared on the night of 3/4 June. Neither the Prime
Minister nor I were slow to express our revulsion-in public, in
Parliament, and, when I summoned the Chinese Charge d'Affaires in
London, to the Chinese Government itself. We continue, with our
partners in the European Community, to watch the situation very
carefully, particularly as the predicted wave of repression and reprisals unfolds. However little effect our protests may have, and the Chinese have made clear their contempt for foreign "interference", we continue to take every possible opportunity to urge the Chinese authorities to return to the path of sanity.
3.
Feelings are running high, nowhere more so than in Hong Kong itself. Even before the tanks began to roll that weekend, Hong Kong
people had taken to the streets in their hundreds of thousands in
support of the students' movement in Peking. It is not difficult to
imagine how angry, frustrated and fearful those who were moved to
express their solidarity in this way must now feel, having seen their hopes for democratic reform in China so uncompromisingly
crushed.
4.
Naturally they look to Britain to help at this difficult time Since we have a special responsibility to the people of Hong Kong.
But I do not believe they would thank us were we to react with anger
and frustration or in an otherwise emotional way. Calls to "void"
the Joint Declaration strike me in this light. To scrap that
agreement, in my view, would be a worthless and potentially disastrous gesture, a gesture only of petulance or of despair.
5.
In spite of recent convulsions and continuing uncertainty in
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