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advantage and starting from an advantageous position, or do we have no advantageous position? Are we trailers in this race?
Sir Alan Donald: I would say first of all that Hong Kong is an asset. There is no question
no question of that. Hong Kong works. It has a great deal of British capital already invested there, and some extremely good companies that know how to deal with China. The Chinese themselves know that Hong Kong is a very good asset for China. As Sir Percy mentioned, the economies of Hong Kong and Guangdong Province are very closely linked together now. It is the Chinese ambition that there should be many Hong Kongs up and down the coast of China in due course.
The fact that there is a British connection with it, if one can leave aside for the moment the disagreements that are going on and may continue for the next three years, overall it will still remain the gateway to China for British goods and services. It is far and away the leading financial centre in the region and the Chinese know that. We should continue to make use of it.
We cannot afford to ignore what is happening in China itself, either. If the growth rate of 9 per cent per annum continues every year, and if the developments at the head of the dragon at the mouth of the Yangtse, Shanghai and Pudong continue, we should certainly be paying a great deal of attention there.
I have a particular comment to make because I realise, Mr Chairman, that time is going on. We need to have more knowledge of China in this country. The poor sinologues in the Foreign Office have had a great deal of stick because we are the ones who have to know something about China, although there is no such thing as an expert, there are only varying degrees of ignorance. We need to develop, as we have with Japan, centres of excellence inside this country that develop knowledge of what is going on inside China and where it is going. It is a huge continent to get to know.
This has been touched upon in evidence before the Committee. I very much approved of the evidence given by the British Council representatives here about the very valuable work they are doing in making contact with Chinese institutions and encouraging the same thing here.
There will come a day, if Chinese economic growth continues,
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