major Chinese cities
and also
Tibet.
This
is itself
to
in China's hitherto
hitherto insistence
insistence that something of a change in China's human rights and legal questions are strictly "internal" China. China's sensitivity to world opinion on human rights following the Tiananmen Square incident, its realisation of the economic clout of human rights activists (not least in
the United States Congress) promotes a respect for Hong
Kong's basic rights derived from China's changing society.
The lesson of Central and Eastern Europe and of the Soviet
Union appears to be that the future belongs to freedom, not
autocracy. Advance the education of the people and enlarge
their contact with the outside world and they will refuse
forever to accept the dictatorial whim of an individual, a Party or a group lacking the legitimacy of democratic
acceptance. Thus China may itself change. The history of
be must
of waves alternative
liberalisation and autocracy. At least the backlash of June
1989 though cruel and punitive did not even begin to
approach that of earlier acts of suppression in China.
the Cultural Revolution millions died.
China
seen
as one of
of the world economy,
In
its
The very integration of
transport and telecommunication systems render vulnerable any
country seeking economic advancement at the price of
political oppression. It may be the mission of Hong Kong, at
an important moment in the history of the world and of China,
to take ideas of individual rights and the rule of law into
China. With the entrepreneurs of Kong Hong opened up
up to
China, knowing the measure of freedom they have enjoyed, they
may take in their knapsacks the common law
law concepts of
individual rights and the rule of law and spread those ideas
13
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