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Hong Kong
6 DECEMBER 1993
The Joint Declaration makes clear the fundamental tish responsibility up to the middle of 1997. We and the Governor are committed to working with China in the interests of Hong Kong, and we look for corresponding commitment from their side.
Dr. John Cunningham (Copeland): The House will welcome the opportunity to question the Home Secretary on his important and rather serious statement about developments over Hong Kong. I reiterate that we have always supported these proposals. Modest though they are, we have given them a fair wind, because, I guess like most democrats, we wanted, albeit a little late in the day, a widening of the franchise and a broadening of the democratic process in Hong Kong.
Given that the Joint Declaration accepts the evolution of democracy and that it is enshrined in the Basic Law enacted by the People's Republic of China, the central question in response to the right hon. Gentleman's statement is, what on earth has gone wrong?
There is quite clearly a fundamental divide between the Government of the People's Republic of China and Her Majesty's Government. I accept what the right hon. Gentleman says, that the dispute is about the detailed implementation of procedures for elections. Everyone accepts that whatever proposals emerge must ensure fair and open elections that are acceptable to the people of Hong Kong; otherwise, there would be no point in going through the process.
Who was suggesting that any counter-proposals from China are not intended to be fair, open and acceptable? Is that the implication of the right hon. Gentleman's statement? Perhaps I had better reiterate something else. I do not have any particularly fond feelings for the perpetrators of the Tiananmen square massacre or other details of human and democratic rights in the People's Republic of China, but it is not conciliatory or constructive to imply, as the right hon. Gentleman apparently did in his statement, that the Chinese are suggesting alternatives that are open to abuse and corruption. If that is not the right hon. Gentleman's intention, he should make that clear to the House.
The statement has serious implications for relations between Her Majesty's Government and that of the People's Republic of China, but they are even more serious for the future of Hong Kong's people. If it is impossible to reach agreement on the simpler details, what real hope can there be for a deal on the more complex issues that have yet to be discussed and negotiated? It seems as though the through train of democratic reform has just come off the rails in these talks.
Why has not it been possible to persuade the Government of the People's Republic of China to accept even these simplest of proposals? There is a great lacuna in the right hon. Gentleman's statement, because nowhere does it say why there has been any disagreement. If it is simply intransigence and obstinacy on the part of the People's Republic, the Home Secretary should say so, especially in view of Mr. Deng Xiaoping's statement in the early 1980s:
"We hope that the Chinese and British Governments will engage in friendly consultations on this question, and we shall be glad to listen to the suggestions put forward by the British Government."
If that remains the position of the Government of the People's Republic of China, we need to know more about why no progress has been made. Is it, as Sir Percy Cradock
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suggests, that these discussions got off on the wrong foot in October 1992, and that Her Majesty's Government have been unable to recover the situation since then?
For example, what will the right hon. Gentleman do if, as a result of unilateral action on legislation—I understand the time scale and accept that the Governor cannot wait indefinitely the Chinese Government refuse to be involved in any further discussions? Can the right hon. Gentleman assure the House that pressing ahead with the proposals will not jeopardise developments such as the new Hong Kong airport and other joint projects?
Is it not clear that China intends to set these proposals aside in 1997 and introduce its own plans? Is it not also clear that, without a substantial recovery of trust and further serious negotiations which end in agreement, there is nothing that Her Majesty's Government would be able to do about that?
Mr. Hurd: The bulk of the right hon. Gentleman's questions should be addressed to the Government in Peking. My responsibility to the House is to explain and justify what the Government and the Governor are proposing. It is for the Chinese Government to explain why, if our proposals were not reasonable-as I believe they are they have not so far been accepted. In the early autumn of last year, I informed the Chinese Foreign Minister of what the Governor of Hong Kong proposed to say. Weeks passed, with no Chinese reaction except a request that he should not say it. He said it, and then there was a Chinese protest. After several months, the Chinese began the discussions which took the course that I have described.
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Issues of very substantial importance remain un- resolved. We want the electorates for the functional constituencies to expand. We want the composition of the election committee to be in itself elected. We want an objective-criteria "through train", so that the people elected in 1995 know what they have to do-for example, taking an oath to the new special administrative region -in order to stay on the council after the transfer of sovereignty.
Those are all outstanding issues, and on all of them we have put forward proposals that we think are modest and reasonable, as the right hon. Gentleman has said. What is immediately in question are not those matters but matters that, until recently, we thought were not controversial.
The right hon. Gentleman talked in very gloomy terms, but he will have noticed the very robust confidence of Hong Kong in recent days and weeks, which is a change from when I first began to deal with these matters some years ago. The people of Hong Kong know what is going on, because Hong Kong is not a place where matters are long or successfully concealed, but they have not allowed it to deter the colony from going ahead.
That is a change from the days when the slightest rumblings of differences between Britain and China caused a great deal of gloom and despondency in Hong Kong. It is very much a change for the better.
The right hon. Gentleman's basic point is right. Some people-for example, Sir Percy Cradock in his article yesterday-talked as if we were running up against a Chinese reluctance to contemplate future democracy. The scheme is that, in 1999, two years after the transfer of sovereignty, the number of directly elected members should rise from 18 to 24 and then to 30 in the year 2003. The functional constituencies should rise to 30, and
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