TNAG-2329-FCO40-3373-Hong-Kong-contacts-with-academics-and-writers-1991 — Page 66

We

and fosters the environment in which business can prosper. want an exciting, dynamic and prosperous Hong Kong. We want a Hong Kong that continues to be a recognized centre of cultural and economic power in Southeast Asia. These things are described by the Basic Law; but they cannot be guaranteed by any piece of paper. They can only be attained, by determination, by good and mutually beneficial relations with our neighbours and with the right leadership. "41

And by letting the world know what Hong Kong's precise freedoms allow its people to undertake and produce,

The relationship between the CPG and the SAR is clearly sensitive, and it needs to be seen in the context of the need for procedures for the resolution of disputes between the CPG and the HKSAR. In a note written on 26th June, 1990, before travelling to Hong Kong and Beijing, I said the following: -

"After 1997, disputes between Beijing and its Special

Administrative Region are inevitable: only their scale and seriousness is in doubt. The handling of the protests in Tiananmen Square in 1989 indicated at the least that China's political institutions do not provide the means of resolving conflicts regarded as threatening to the mainland's socialist system, and that a serious dispute can result in the mobilisation of the Chinese army, and the use by its personnel of considerable violence against unarmed civilians. From 1997, the People's Liberation Army will be stationed in Hong Kong. I understand that this provides part of the context within which the fears of people in Hong Kong need to be addressed. But it means, equally, that in approaching relevant issues, there is a need to examine if there exist ways of inspiring confidence into relevant relationships, as well as taking care always to note those which could undermine it further.

It is arguable that if people concerned about the future of Hong Kong concentrate all their energy on the absence of sufficient legal guarantees for autonomy, and the defective level of justiciability of critically important areas of PRC action, vital as these are, they may miss the opportunity of seeing whether it is possible to mould a shared understanding between now and 1997 between officials in China and Hong Kong as to [a] the methods by which each of them set administrative priorities for their respective territories, and [b] the approach each of them would like to employ given the need for a stable resolution of such conflicts 25 will occur in areas where their joint or sole writ

will run.

The "stable resolution" of conflicts can be provided by judicial mechanisms and by the routinisation of practice, in other words by conventions. There is little point in my suggesting judicial