Ratification of Hong Kong agreement

Press, 24 May 1985, Page 16

Ratification of Hong Kong agreement

From NZPA staff correspondent, 1

DAVID PORTER,

in Hong

Kong

Britain has confirmed that a New Zealand citizen, Mr Eric Ho, will be a member of the influential group to oversee the transfer of Hong Kong’s sovereignty to China. A Peking Embassy spokesman said Britain had granted full British citizenship to Mr Ho, the territory’s Secretary for Trade and Industry, a local Chinese and the holder of a British Dependent Territory Citizen passport.

The British decision resolved a deadlock with Peking over inclusion of a Hong Kong representative on the Joint Liaison Group, whose members will have diplomatic status.

Mr Ho gained a New Zealand passport through his wife’s family about five years ago, but could not serve as a British diplomat without gaining full British citizenship. The liaison group will be set up

on ratification of the Sino-British Joint Declaration signed by the British Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, and the Chinese Premier, Zhao Ziyang, last December.

It will function until the year 2000 under the terms of the joint declaration on Hong Kong’s future after 1997, which it is charged with overseeing.

The British spokesman, in announcing the membership of the group, said ratification would take place in a ceremony in Peking on Monday.

The inclusion of Mr Ho in the group has been the subject of press speculation here for some weeks, with commentators seeing it as a response by Britain to local calls for a Hong Kong representative to ensure the territory’s interests were looked after.

China has insisted that it represents the Hong Kong Chinese and that talks regarding the territory’s future should involve only Britain and China.

“We and China hold different views on the nationality status of people like Eric Ho,” the embassy spokesman told reporters in Peking. “We had to find a way to agree.”

Reuters reported that the spokesman said London’s motives for including Mr Ho were not to defy China over Hong Kong representation, but to make use of his expertise.

This would be needed when the liaison group defended Hong Kong’s status as a separate territory after 1997 in pacts such as the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade and the Multifibre Arrangement (M.F.A.). A statement issued by the Hong Kong Government expanded that position.

“The British Government’s primary concern was to designate those officials (including Hong Kong Government officials) who, by virtue of their experience and expertise, are most able to contribute effectively to the group,” the statement said.

“The group’s terms of reference require it to consider at an early stage action to be taken by the two Governments to ensure the maintenance of Hong Kong’s participation in G.A.T.T., the M.F.A. and other international arrangements.

“Thus the British Government decided to designate Mr H 0... as one of the five members of the British side.”

The British team, led by Dr

David Wilson, an Assistant Undersecretary of State, includes MrJohn Boyd, the Hong Kong Government’s political adviser, Mr Anthony Galsworthy, the head of the Foreign Office’s Hong Kong Department, and Mr Peter Thomson, the Peking Embassy Head of Chancery. China’s team is led by a senior diplomat, Mr Ke Zaishuo, head of the Foreign Ministry’s Hong Kong and Macau Office.

The Hong Kong Government statement said that, to get around the nationality problem with China, Mr Ho applied on May 11 for British citizenship, which was granted under criteria set out under the British Nationality Act. Hong Kong television reported that the granting of British citizenship to Mr Ho could be seen as capitulation by London to Peking’s demands not to include a Hong Kong representative on the group. The rapid granting of citizenship has earned Mr Ho the nickname of "Hong Kong’s Zola Budd” in some newspapers.

Reports here have raised the question of whether the granting of citizenship to Mr Ho could be a precedent for the thousands of local Chinese who would welcome the right to live abroad rather than come under the control of Communist China.

Hong Kong's 5.2 million people have no right of abode in Britain although about three million hold B.D.T.C. passports like Mr Ho’s. The Hong Kong Government statement indicated that the decision on Mr Ho did not alter the British Government’s view that the B.D.T.C.s were British nationals but not citizens.

Mr Ho, aged 58, and married with two sons and a daughter, is the most senior Chinese official in the Hong Kong Government, which he joined in 1955. He became Secretary of Trade and Industry in 1983 and was made a Commander of the British Empire (C.8.E.) this year.