DRAFT OUTLINE SPEECH TO THE SOCIETY OF CONSERVATIVE LAWYERS
Hong Kong
1.
Unlike other
Hong Kong poses a unique constitutional problem. British colonies Hong Kong has never had the prospect of independence. 92% of its territory is held on a 99 year lease that will expire on 1st July 1997, whereupon it will revert to Chinese sovereignty. Remaining 8% could never be viable on its own. So it has long been generally recognised that Hong Kong would be returned to China. In 1982 when negotiations between Britain and China began, the fear was that China would simply reabsorb Hong Kong and that Hong Kong's distinct way of life would come to an end.
2. What Britain achieved in the JD was agreement on very specific arrangements for Hong Kong's future, for at least 50 years after 1997, as a separate entity with its own way of life intact; indeed a Hong Kong which would function in almost every way after 1997 as it does now. JD provides for Hong Kong to enjoy a high degree of autonomy, its existing social and economic system, with all its
basic freedoms intact etc.
3.
Remarkable that China should undertake in an internationally binding agreement that socialism will not be practised in Hong Kong and that Hong Kong's capitalist system will continue. Based on imaginative concept of "one country, two systems" espoused by Deng Xiaoping in 1982.
4.
No less remarkable that China has also enacted a Basic Law for Hong Kong, meticulous in detail and comprehensive in scope designed to give legal effect to assurances of the JD. To China's credit the drafting process was such an open one. Hong Kong people were consulted at every stage. The Basic Law was promulgated
on 4 April 1990 and will come into effect on 1 July 1997. We believe that the Basic Law is, on the whole, an acceptable
reflection of the JD, although there are provisions we would have drafted differently. [Mr Maude will need defensive briefing in the
event of questions].
BODABW
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