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[24 JANUARY 1990 ]
the Executive Council. The governor would then have to override the Executive Council. That has nev nodeva before. It would
wonderful
present of a precedent for China whichever it wanted the chief executive not to take the advice of the Executive Council or the Legislative Council. If the Governor persisted in pushing in adequate British proposals the Legislative Council would amend them. Otherwise the people of Hong Kong would throw them out, as communist governments all over the world are being thrown out for not following the people's will.
The British Government warn against the risk of annoying China, but it is the Hong Kongers, not us, who take that risk. If there is a reasonable government in Peking in 1997, all will be well. If it is the same Stalinist government as today it will have the embarrassment of openly reducing democracy in Hong Kong. Hong Kong would then be no worse off than if it agreed to China's present proposals.
We are out of date in trying to repress popular demands for democracy. They cannot be put back in the can. If we tried to do that, the Hong Kong people might even demand and seize complete independence now, just as parts of the Soviet Union are trying to do. Where would we be then if Chinese troops came in before 1997 to assert Peking's despotism? The joint declaration would be meaningless.
China is anxious that we should endorse the Basic Law when it emerges in its final form in February and March. That gives us a weapon to insist that any part of it which conflicts with the joint declaration should be removed. The other weapon belongs to the Hong Kongers; it is to insist on a strong element of genuine democracy before 1997. I advise them to go for broke and ask for 100 per cent. to be elected by popular vote in 1991. The longer such a system is in place the harder it will be to destroy.
Long happy with the rule of law and the democratic processes of British administration, Hong Kong has only recently realised the need to run its own affairs. How can we say to those intelligent, able and industrious people that they are less qualified to have one person, one vote than Romanians or Indians? Hong Kongers may not have had complete democracy but they know what it is all about. They will struggle not to be left out of the full democracy tide sweeping through the world. We must help them, not hinder them. We must hope that by 1997 there will be a more or less democratic government in Peking which will allow Hong Kong genuine autonomy and remove all our problems over Hong Kongers fearing to stay in Hong Kong.
6.6 p.m.
Lord Ennals: My Lords, it is a rare privilege for me to be able to speak in this House on a subject other than health. I am grateful to my noble friend on the Front Bench for permitting it. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Bonham-Carter, for introducing the debate, and grateful too to the Foreign Secretary for having invited me, together with Timothy Raison, to go to Vietnam and submit a report on the boat people. My main contribution
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to the debate will concern the problem of the boat people with its obvious profound implications for
ong Kong.
I have been to Hong Kong on so many occasions that I should like to say two sentences on the broad issue. First, in my view it would be a shameful end to the long history of the British Empire and subsequently the Commonwealth if we were to betray our trust to the energetic, industrious people of Hong Kong. Secondly, Britain must, even though belatedly, push forward the process of democracy, as has been so powerfully argued by the people of Hong Kong themselves. Time is both short and precious and we must lay the foundations for a genuinely democratic system in Hong Kong before 1997.
If my first point has been the need for courage now to avoid the need for a mass flood of refugees from Hong Kong, then my second point and the rest of my speech must be dedicated to those who have fled from Vietnam as refugees or asylum seekers since 1975. They, too, were fleeing from communism. They were also, especially in recent times, fleeing from poverty. Of those whom Timothy Raison and I met who had been returned by plane on 12th December and who had wished to improve their standards of life in other parts of the world, none claimed to be refugees. They had hoped that they could be able to go to Australia, the United States, Canada, New Zealand or elsewhere, as nearly a million of the population had been able to do in the years before.
Vietnam's poverty cannot be blamed on its government alone. It has suffered from long years of occupation. It has struggled against occupation by Japan, the United States and France. It has been denied any form of compensation for the appalling damage that was done to the country during long years of war and for the boycott on trade imposed by the United States, with the support of Britain and other countries within the Community. I am certain that, although it obviously takes some time to see the effects of economic aid, at this moment it would bring great hope both to those in Vietnam-and discourage them from departure-and to those in Hor Kong-and encourage them to return —if Vie am were incorporated within a world system of d to the benefit of its people.
It would be unfair to blame the boat people for leaving. So many before them had left. If one considers the group of people interviewed by Timothy Raison and myself, one sees that they all left on 10th or 11th June 1988 and arrived on 20th June 1988. The rules changed on 16th June when they were half way there. They left with the entitlement to be refugees, arrived with that entitlement removed and quite rightly joined the screening process.
I thought it quite proper, although some people might say that it was a little late, that we should decide to draw a line between those who are refugees fleeing from persecution or fear of persecution and those hoping to find a better life in another country. It is vital for the long-term interests of refugees that that definition should be drawn. If we were to say that all who flee from wherever to wherever for a
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