TNAG-2487-FCO40-3618-Future-relations-between-Hong-Kong-and-China-1992 — Page 128

Mr Bunten HKD

29

Reference.

UNCLASSIFIED

HKC 000/1

ICJ REPORT ON HONG KONG

CM

1.

I attach an example of one of the relatively few examples of which I am aware of a Chinese comment on the report of the International Commission of Jurists on Hong Kong. It comes from the Fazhi Ribao published in Peking and is a very intemperate piece denouncing the "international law lawyers" who wrote it as people who considered themselves no ordinary beings and who should be ashamed of themselves for bring disgrace upon the "honourable title of international law lawyers'". The Chinese did not mount a huge campaign against the ICJ report at the time of its publication, and the present article was presumably meant more for a domestic than an international audience. Self-determination (see below) in particular is a concept to which the Chinese take considerable exception in the case of Tibet.

2. The main Chinese objections were to the assertion that the Sino-British talks neglected the Hong Kong people's human rights and to the allegation that the Joint Declaration "does not vest the Hong Kong people with the right of self determination. The former is refuted by means of a number of quotations from the Joint Declaration showing the respect paid by both the Chinese and the British governments to Hong Kong people's human rights. The latter is not denied but dismissed as irrelevant on the grounds that Hong Kong was always part of China and thus there was never a Hong Kong nation to exercise the right of self determination. Furthermore those who argued for this right were really attempting to hinder the resumption of China's sovereignty over Hong Kong and in fact trying to keep Hong Kong under British rule.

RF Wye

Far Eastern Section Research & Analysis Dept OAB 2/125 210 6219/6216 8 July 1992

CODE RAD

UNCLASSIFIED