VISIT OF LORD CAITHNESS TO OSLO: 12-13 NOVEMBER
NOTES FOR TALK ON HONG KONG AND CHINA
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Remarkable success of Hong Kong means that a great deal is at stake as we approach 1997: world's eleventh largest trading entity, world's busiest container port and major international financial centre. Also hub of business operations throughout Asia/Pacific region and gateway to trade with and investment in China. 70% of all foreign investment in China comes through Hong Kong.
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While Hong Kong is primarily a British responsibility, it is therefore in everyone's interest that it remains stable
and prosperous up to 1997 and beyond.
- For reasons of history and geography, always inevitable in practical terms that Hong Kong would revert to China when lease on New Territories expires on 1 July 1997. Remaining
8% could never be viable on its own. For years, fear was
that when handover took place, China would simply absorb
Hong Kong and that extraordinary chemistry which has made
Hong Kong uniquely exhilarating would disappear.
When we embarked on negotiations with China in 1982 on
future of Hong Kong, almost inconceivable that Communist
China would agree to sign an internationally binding
agreement which stipulates that socialism will not be
practised in Hong Kong for 50 years and which assures continuation of Hong Kong's capitalist system and way of
life.
......
Agreement provides for Hong Kong to continue to enjoy a
high degree of autonomy, with its existing social and
economic systems, its laws and basic freedoms intact. After
1997 the Hong Kong SAR will therefore be a distinct
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