Hong Kong deal given cautious approval

Press, 28 September 1984, Page 6

Hong Kong deal given cautious approval

NZPA-Reuter Hong Kong Hong Kong financial markets and newspapers gave a qualified approval yesterday to the Sino-British draft agreement under which Britain will hand the territory over to China in 1997.

The agreement was initialled in Peking on Wednesday after two years of secret and often acrimonious talks.

The Hong Kong dollar remained strong yesterday morning, and bankers started talking about ending the effective pegging of the currency to the United States dollar — a move begun last year to halt the flight of capital out of the colony.

The Hong Kong stock markets also reacted positively, rising a healthy 10 Eoints in the first hour of usiness.

Under the agreement China will make Hong Kong a special administrative region in 1997 but has guaranteed to allow the territory to retain its capitalist economic system and social freedoms for 50 years after that.

The “Oriental Daily News,’’Hong Kong’s biggestselling newspaper, said that it had conducted a snap survey on Wednesday night and found that of 616 people

asked, 23 per cent fully approved of the agreement, while 75 per cent approved with reservations.

The newspaper said that the most common reservation among those polled was “the fear that the present freedoms and life-style would not be maintained.” In their editorial comment, most local newspapers indicated their support for the agreement, but said that the important thing was to make sure its provisions were put into effect.

“All of the requests and proposals which we raised two years ago have been included in the agreement,” the independent “Ming Pao Daily News” said, adding, “The question from now on is how to make sure that all the provisions will be fully implemented during the next 63 years.” The English-language “South China Morning Post” said that the agreement represented “a sentence of new life, and our only hope is to make the most of it.”

“The wish to applaud the agreement is tempered by the uncertainty of whether it will all come to pass . . .

it is one thing to negotiate and construct a document, another to enforce it and make it work,” it said. The Peking-controlled “Ta Kung Pao" newspaper

said that the agreement was “a great event for the Chinese nation and race and one of the most important events of recent world history.”

The British press gave a cautious welcome to the agreement. They said that it was not necessarily the conclusive factor in determining the colony’s future. In an editorial headlined, “An agreement on trial,” the Financial Times said, “The draft agreement on the future of Hong Kong is a remarkable document which goes as far as is reasonable, and a good deal further than might, have been predicted, in prescribing principles and practices which should help maintain the stability and prosperity of Hong Kong after the transfer of sovereignty to China in 1997.

“In’ that sense, it is a considerable achievement by the British negotiators. But it is important to recognise that this 40 page paper will be only one factor influencing events in years to come, and not necessarily the conclusive factor at that.

“The heart of the matter is that the agreement marks the beginning of the process of adaptation, of which 1997 will be the formal watershed. For Hong Kong the pre-Chinese era has

started.” “The Times” said in an editorial, “ . . . just as it would be wrong to celebrate the agreement as a victory, so, too, would it be wrong to criticise it too severely. It has managed to secure some unusually specific assurances from Peking, and as such holds out the prospect of order, stability and business confidence in Hong Kong, at least for the next few years. “It does not, and cannot, address the distressing fact that most people in Hong Kong remain deeply suspicious of the Chinese Communist Party and extremely reluctant to come under its sway.”

The conservative “Daily Telegraph” said that what happened after 1997 remained a matter of faith and hope, but it was optimistic.

“Even a second Mao” could not ignore China’s interest in sustaining in foreign exchange earnings from Hong Kong,” it said.

The Right-wing “Daily Express” said in an editorial that it was not ready to join the celebrations on the signing; “The stark and depressing truth is that in 13 years time a small society of free souls will be handed over to a totalitarian Power,” it said.