TNAG-2329-FCO40-3373-Hong-Kong-contacts-with-academics-and-writers-1991 — Page 48

FCO40 Hong Kong Department Records 聯邦事務部香港部檔案 All

5.

[b]

[c]

of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference's meeting on April 4, 1988, said that the flow of Chinese money into Hong Kong could adversely affect the territory's capitalist economy because 'some wealthy Chinese companies were devastating middle and small-scale enterprises in Hong Kong. He said that the main problem was that the plans of Chinese companies were not clear and that 'the companies did not operate according to local economic rules.

He called upon

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Beijing not to exercise, too much control over Hong Kong before or after 1997."

Two days later, on 6th April, 1988, the South China Morning Post reported that: -

"Beijing would look into the question of whether it

was meddling too much in Hong Kong affairs, the [then] Acting Prime Minister, Mr. Li Peng, told a Hong Kong publisher yesterday.

Two and a half years later, on 1st November, 1990, Hong Kong's Far Eastern Economic Review reported the results:

"Xu Si-men, says he is far from satisfied with the

results of the investigation

Xu says authorities in Peking are wasting their time trying to clean up China-backed enterprises in Hong Kong. He believes that as soon as the Chinese Government ends its two-year-long austerity campaign, cadres in the colony will revive their business trickery with renewed vigour

Their boldness was made possible by a lack of accountability of costly mistakes and what they believed to be an endless supply of state funds

Most Hong Kong businessmen agree that the only way for Peking to keep its enterprises and cadres staying from the communist party fold is through the use of clear

administrative directives.'

17

Whose rules? What will they provide? Who will enforce them? Would this be a form of competing PRC/Hong Kong jurisdiction? This possibility concerns me greatly, for it would undermine autonomy very considerably.

Under the Basic Law, "a Commission against Corruption shall be established in the HKSAR. It shall function independently and be accountable to the Chief Executive". I assume that this form of accountability is properly an obligation to report rather than an obligation to obey. I assume that the CCP will not undermine it indirectly by insisting on its

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