U.K. to return all of colony — report

Press, 23 January 1984, Page 8

U.K. to return all of colony — report

NZPA-Reuter London Britain and China had reached a conditional agreement which would give China sovereignty and administrative control over the whole of Hong Kong after 1997, “The Sunday Times” newspaper reported yesterday. China would promise in return to preserve the colony’s capitalist system for 50 years and to entrust administration to local people, it said. But the people of Hong Kong would nave no right of appeal to Britain to uphold Peking’s pledges. The report by Murray Sayle, a veteran correspondent in Asia, is one of the most detailed to appear during more than a year of talks. Both sides are pledged to secrecy about the substance of their talks. The British

Foreign Office, as usual, would not comment on “The Sunday Times” story. Britain’s lease on most of the colony’s territory exK’ s in 1997. “The Sunday es” said that main Eints in the proposed deal d been worked out on the basis that Britain would then cede sovereignty and administration over the remainder, to which nineteenth century treaties give it a claim in perpetuity. The newspaper said that a breakthrough in the talks had been achieved in midDecember, when Britain had agreed to conduct the negotiations on that assumption. Sayle wrote that the deal was still conditional on agreement over details, but “the truth is that only the fineprint remains to be settled.”

“The Sunday Times” said that China’s promises to the

people of Hong Kong would include the right to emigrate, the right to keep funds abroad, and the right of free speech. Even gambling — viewed in China as a form of bourgeois degeneracy — would be permitted.

Foreigners would be permitted to own land and employ labour. But Sayle said that “there are bound to be deep misgivings about the chances of China keeping its promises.”

“The Sunday Times” said that the key concession had been offered on the instruction of the Prime Minister, Mrs Margaret Thatcher, after the talks had been stalled by her original demand that Britain retain administrative control for an indefinite period. The report was headlined: “Thatcher hands Hong Kong to China.”