House of Commons Hansard Debates for 27 Apr 1995

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It is a remarkable provision of the Basic Law that article 106 says that the Hong Kong special administrative region shall use its revenues exclusively for its own purposes, and they shall not be handed over to the central People's Government. Furthermore, the central People's Government shall not levy taxes in the Hong Kong special administrative region. Article 110 says that the Government of the Hong Kong SAR shall, on their own, formulate their monetary and fiscal policies. The Chinese statement in annexe I of the joint declaration requires the Hong Kong SAR to report its budgets and final accounts to the central People's Government--but simply for the record. That is rather as if the City of London were exempt from paying any taxes to the Treasury for the next 50 years.

Great political skill and restraint will be needed on both sides if those articles are to be honoured fully. A condition is that honouring them must be seen to be in the best interests of China as a whole, because Hong Kong's contribution to China will be greater in that way than it could be under any other arrangement.

One major contribution that Hong Kong can make is to act as a window on the world, not only in trade and finance but in education, research, technology, health services, social services and other ways. I can give an example that I have discussed with many people in Hong Kong. Universities in Hong Kong will be fully stretched in providing for undergraduates, mainly from Hong Kong, but one or more of them are capable of becoming national institutions within China, complementing the roles of such great universities as Beijing, Xinghua, Fudan and others, drawing and contributing graduate students from all over China and providing China with a means of having highly trained people in business, technology, science, humanities, law and so on, who are wholly at home in a climate that can rival that of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Berkeley, Stanford and our own universities in Europe. It would be a wise investment for Hong Kong if it were fully to contribute to such development in China. I should like to conclude with the piece of rhetoric with which I concluded my speech in the 1963 debate and which was not bad for a young man.

"I would ask whether we see Hong Kong like the string of crackers with which our Chinese friends so delight to welcome us, flashing and banging and then leaving the deepened stillness of a tropical night; or whether we see Hong Kong like a seed which will grow into a tree which the children and the children's children of all those millions in China and in Hong Kong will see, and seeing, give thanks for the labour, the wisdom and the piety of their ancestors."--[ Official Report , 11 April 1963; Vol. 675, c. 1517.]

6.20 pm

Mr. David Howell (Guildford): This is a welcome opportunity, not only to return to the issue of Hong Kong, as is our proper duty in this House, but to look at Hong Kong matters in the broader context of our relations with China and, indeed, our relations with the whole Asia Pacific region. It is also a welcome event from the point of view of the Select Committee on Foreign Affairs because it gives the House an opportunity to comment on its report on Britain's relations with China and Hong Kong, which we published well over a year ago. Some of the detail may be out of date, but its main thrust and considerations are still very apposite.

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I shall explain, because some may have forgotten as it was published some time ago, that the report did not only address the narrow issue of Hong Kong or the bilateral issue of relations with China. We were trying--indeed, it was the purpose behind the report-- to look a little further ahead, especially beyond 1997 and, as it were, beyond the obvious difficulties and problems that we want to overcome in our relations with Bejiing over Hong Kong, to the enormous possibilities of establishing very much closer ties of every kind, not only commercial and financial, but of all sorts, with that giant awakening nation which has 23 per cent. of the world's population. That was our aim.

I heard my right hon. Friend the Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (Sir E. Heath) take a swipe at the report. I can just about endure that, but I must say that he was being--very uncharacteristically--a little unfair in his assessment of what we were trying to say. If he reads the report, he will find in almost every page, right from the beginning, our insistence that we were looking for positive ways in which to sew together our relations with that great nation. We have reflected in almost every page the Committee's view--I think that it is a wider view--of the huge respect that we have for China and how it is coping. How that vast nation is able to cope with immensely rapid economic change remains to western minds a miracle of construction. That was entirely our view.

Perhaps what my right hon. Friend the Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup did not like was that we approached the subject--again, we see this as our duty to the House--in a fairly candid way. We do not see it as our duty to approach such matters with buckets of whitewash or to be starry-eyed or uncritical about even our closest friends. In considering all the problems- -we certainly marvelled at all the aspects of modern China and at how the People's Republic of China was tackling problems--it would have been wrong to brush them aside and not be frank and open as a parliamentary Committee should properly be. I am sorry if that was misunderstood by my right hon. Friend and perhaps by other people around the world, but that was our approach and I make no apology whatever for it. It was, and remains, an attempt to be utterly constructive about how, beyond 1997, we view our relations with that vast country.

There was an even bigger thought behind that aim which today has even more validity as every month goes by: our belief--it is certainly mine--that the rise of Asian economic power will be followed and is already being followed by the rise of Asian political power. That vast shift of power to the Asia Pacific region--a shift in the centre of gravity of the whole planet--will be the most compelling theme of our politics, our policies and, indeed, almost our ways of life over the next 10 and 20 years.

In preparing our report, we saw, as anyone may see now, some amazing figures. They are not just fancy forecasts, projecting things as though everything will go smoothly in Asia, which obviously it will not, but facts now or only a little way ahead indicating the true power and potential of that region. The hon. Member for Motherwell, South (Dr. Bray), who speaks with authority, mentioned some of those facts, as have many hon. Members.

I am very struck by one of the European Commission's documents, which says that by 2000--only 54 months ahead--there will be more than 400 million people in the

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Asia Pacific region with disposable incomes higher than the average for the European Union. That means that even though there will still be much poverty, in terms of disposable income and purchasing power it will be a market bigger than the entire European Union. That is one of many figures that we need to keep in mind when thinking about the vast importance of developing a good relationship with the region in every way.

We need also to think beyond economics. It is not only a question of higher living standards. Income per head in Hong Kong is higher than in the United Kingdom. It is also higher in Singapore and about the same in Taiwan. I should think that there are many areas of other parts of Asia and the Indian subcontinent where living standards are already high. However, we must consider not only living standards, but the staggering increase in education standards.

From the schools of Hong Kong and Taiwan and perhaps even from schools in parts of China--certainly, from schools in parts of the Indian subcontinent and elsewhere in south-east Asia--a generation of children are emerging who are better educated and equipped than many of our own children to deal with the information age and the high-technology future. So we must not only consider superior living standards but superior education standards.

It may even be, although this is a more tricky statement, to which there are so many exceptions that it could be shot down, that we shall have to look at the higher moral standards being pursued, at least in terms of the Confucian commitment to the family and the family bond and the concepts of personal obligation and family duty, which seem to be strong in many Asian communities--a lot stronger than in the west, where we preach such values but have ceased to practise them quite as well as we should.

Mr. William Powell (Corby): My right hon. Friend made a point about education of quite awesome importance for the future. Is that not underpinned by the fact that in the Republic of China and in Taiwan the constitution requires at least 15 per cent. of all public expenditure to be spent on education? That is the major reason why in Taiwan, and elsewhere in the region as my right hon. Friend says, there is such an enormous and emerging educated class.

Mr. Howell: That is a very good example of the point that I was trying to make. I shall reinforce it with two more statistics. I do not want to bore the House with endless figures which, again, are facts today and not futurology predictions, but the Asia Pacific region, and within it the huge China economic region, now produces a quarter of all our income from overseas investments. It is a very large amount and it may even be higher than the latest figure that I have, which is for last year. It takes about a fifth of our exports. Again, I suspect that that figure is rising.

Even more significantly, the region is generating the capital growth of the planet. Out of the fantastic savings of those peoples, who are committed to saving and are not consumption-minded, come the capital resources that are financing the planet's growth. A striking fact is that Japan produces 56 per cent. of the entire net savings of the world. I suspect that Taiwan produces a further 4 or

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5 per cent., Hong Kong produces savings of the same order, and China is already generating large savings which are being fed into the international financial markets.

He who saves the money calls the tune, and the tune of the future will increasingly be dictated by those who are mobilising those colossal savings. In this debate, the theme has been what we feel should happen on the other side of the planet, but we should note that those huge capital flows are coming to Europe and especially to the United Kingdom. Of Taiwanese investment into Europe, 80 per cent. comes to the United Kingdom. Japan's direct investment in the UK is equal to its investment in the rest of the European Union. I suspect that increasing amounts of money are also beginning to flow in from Taiwan, Malaysia and the People's Republic of China, although we do not immediately see them labelled. They are the sources of investment of the future, so as a nation we would be mad not to realise that our interests lie in good and ever stronger relations with all those nations, but especially with China.

The issue at the forefront of our relations with China, and which has understandably been the subject of most comments today because it blocks our longer-term vision, is Hong Kong and how we can do the right thing and fulfil our duty from Hong Kong's point of view. Some of our Chinese friends find it difficult to grasp the concept that we are pursuing our duty and what we believe to be right rather than our own interests.

We must also pursue our own interests, however, and not be too high-minded or starry-eyed. We must ensure that our good relations with Hong Kong and the huge investment and political effort that we have put into fulfilling our duty there can in turn benefit this nation so that we do not come out a lap behind those who could bypass Hong Kong's political problems and develop their relations directly with Beijing. It would be a great disappointment if the Anglo-Hong Kong relationship, which was to be the one to provide us with a head start against other European nations in investment in the awakening China and parts of Asia--including north-east Asia, which has hardly been mentioned--turned out to be more of a handicap than a benefit. In one's gloomier moments, when listening to the exchange of vituperative slogans, one sometimes feels that that may be so, but that is an unnecessarily gloomy view and it need not be so. My right hon. Friend the Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup has had huge experience of talking to Chinese leaders who, although they are inclined to say that the Hong Kong problem could damage relations with Britain, are also inclined to say that in general it probably will not. I declare an interest as a director of Trafalgar House, which is undertaking huge infrastructure investments in China. In my experience, the Hong Kong problem has not made much difference. Let us hope that that is the reality and what will prevail despite some of the more chilling statements.

How do we ensure that Hong Kong is a plus for us and also for the people of Hong Kong? The report of the Select Committee on Foreign Affairs considers all the propositions and deals with whether the Patten proposals for electoral law reform contradicted the Basic Law. It came to the conclusion- -not casually, but after painstaking analysis--that they did not, that they were within the spirit of the Basic Law, that it was right, and that that law and the joint declaration say that Britain has responsibility for what goes on in the territory of Hong

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Kong until 1 July 1997. The Basic Law and the joint declaration require the Chinese authorities to co-operate with us --co-operation has been mentioned--to ensure that the best interests of Hong Kong are served.

I do not say that as a Committee--or, indeed, personally--we thought that every step taken by the Hong Kong Administration has been right. It is possible, especially with the wonderful aid of hindsight, to criticise and to say that things have gone wrong. The Select Committee heard some trenchant criticisms from Sir Percy Cradock and the like. Nevertheless, we are where we are and I agree with my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary and with the hon. Member for Livingston (Mr. Cook) that it is essential that we stand firm to our commitment to democratic electoral practices and that we do not begin to say that we think that the situation is hopeless, time is against us, the clock is ticking away and we must make all sorts of concessions on democratic rights and duties and the necessary ingredients of what we believe to be a separate system--a free economic system and a free society.

Undoubtedly, the mood in Beijing is difficult and I hope that my right hon. Friend the Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup will not criticise me for saying so. An end-of-dynasty mentality is prevailing. Some people in Beijing, whose words I follow closely, are saying things with greater hardness and harshness than they were some years ago. There is a mood that there must be no concessions and no understanding, and that the PRC will do certain things the moment it takes over and that will be that. We shall lose respect, and the people of Hong Kong will probably lose out, if we give in to or tire in the face of that attitude. We have to be absolutely firm about where we are now and I hope that we shall be. The report of my right hon. and hon. Friends in the Foreign Affairs Select Committee takes that line. I do not think that we should apologise for it and I am glad to hear that view reinforced by both Front-Bench spokesmen. The report was certainly not uncritical of certain more detailed matters of Hong Kong policy. We return time and again to the issue of the 52 or 53 widows of ex- service men. I find it difficult to understand the attitude of my right hon. Friends and of the Government to those people. Why they should not just be given nationality I cannot fully understand.

On the non-ethnic Chinese--

Dr. Bray: The right hon. Gentleman should make his representations at the door of the Home Office, not the Foreign Office.

Mr. Howell: I stand corrected if I have got the wrong Department. I hope that my right hon. Friends, whatever their Department, will look into the matter once again. Indeed, I visited the Home Office with the late Lord Bonham-Carter and other distinguished people, including Baroness Dunn, to plead the case once--though yet again without success, I fear. That remains a niggling problem and I hope that my right hon. Friends will not keep brushing it away, but will re-examine it to find out whether they can at least show some movement.

People with far more expertise have dealt with the Court of Final Appeal. As the hon. Member for Motherwell, South said, the matter is related to the role of the Chinese Communist party. What role will it play after 1997 and what assurances can we get that it will not

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play the same sort of political role that it plays in the rest of mainland China? We must watch that issue closely, among many others. The freedom of the press is another issue that we must watch closely. Every day, there is evidence of the shadows closing in on such freedom in Hong Kong. We shall have to combine the task of being a proper monitor and fulfilling our duties to Hong Kong with our wish not to attack or undermine the People's Republic of China--I must stress the latter time and again--but to recognise all its problems, support it and reinforce its efforts to open out and move towards the future.

Although it is a year since our report appeared, the need to look at the post-1997 priorities has been left in the air. It is not too soon to begin to decide on them. First, we should work extremely hard to get and maintain good relations with Beijing, despite the rancour and the difficulties over Hong Kong. We should follow through the range of ideas in our report for sewing together informal relations at a parliamentary, cultural and educational level.

Secondly, we must solve the Hong Kong problem--ideally, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup said, through dialogue. That will be difficult if the other side will not talk or, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Sussex said, the tennis ball is simply not returned. None the less, we must keep working at those talks and never let up.

Thirdly, we must recognise our commercial interests in the region, particularly in relation to Taiwan. We accept, of course, the "One China" policy. Taiwan is not a political entity, but it is a mighty one commercially. It has made great investments in Britain and we should be at least as sensitive as our competitors and neighbours in western Europe in our dealings with it. There are no fewer than 9, 000--not 8,000--Taiwanese students here, which is a colossal number. Taiwan has tremendous good will to our country and, given our difficulties with Beijing, we must be careful not to compensate too much the other way by being less than friendly to it. I refer in particular to the way in which we handle visa applications from Taiwan. Apparently we are the only country which requires the Taiwanese to have a separate piece of paper outside their passport as a visa. I cannot see that that is correct, but apparently it is deemed necessary. I hope that my right hon. Friend the Minister will comment on that.

Fourthly, our general foreign policy stance should be less Euro-centric. That does not meant that we should not get our relations with the European Union absolutely right, but we must remember that it represents a lesser part of world trade because more than half our overseas receipts, if one includes visibles and invisibles, come from outside Europe.

Finally, we have lessons for ourselves, our policies and politics to draw from the amazing rise of power and influence in Asia. Although we should consider its faults, as we have done in the report of the Foreign Affairs Select Committee, we should also consider its fantastic virtues. Countries in Asia deliver personal security through their family bonds, which we seem unable to provide through universal benefit provision and an elaborate system of social security. Perhaps we could learn a lesson from that. If we want to succeed and to be as rich and as socially cohesive as those countries, we should investigate other ways of delivering security.

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We should consider how the parents of the poorest people in Asia devote their entire lives to the schooling of their children, which goes far beyond their states' provision for schooling. Those parents are turning out a new and brilliant generation of young Asians. We should also note how inter-generational respect is so important in parts of the Asian world--something on which I get keener and keener as time goes by. Asian countries have realised that the elderly are not a separate, dependent group, but an integral part of a balanced society. When I visited Japan recently I was fascinated to see how its aging society is not considered a problem, but a gigantic resource which will increase the country's growth, balance and dynamism. I am all for seeing things that way in the European Community as well, instead of granny being pushed into a home. The way in which Asian countries handle the problem of employment and jobs is, in some ways, superior to our approach. Everyone has a role, dignity and status even if, in a ruthless, competitive world, such people would be declared redundant and considered an unnecessary cost on the books. A quite different approach from that is taken in many parts of Asia, including even super-efficient Hong Kong. After several hundred years of assuming that European values are always the best, we must recognise that in many cases the superior values of Asia are delivering superior prosperity, economic performance and quality of life. That is a sobering thought for those who have gone round preaching the wonders of western philosophy for 300 years. I urge upon right hon. and hon. Members, and all those who think about the great power shift in China and Asia, some humility. We must realise that the issue now is not westernisation, which has stirred the world, including Asia, for the past 100 years, but perhaps easternisation--the influence of Asia's fantastic performance on our more stagnant societies.

6.44 pm

Mr. Mike Gapes (Ilford, South): It is important that we have the opportunity to comment not only on the Select Committee report, which was published in March 1994, but on the Government's response to it, published in July 1994. It is regrettable that the House has not had an opportunity to discuss that report, especially since the Select Committee made a number of recommendations--which, unfortunately, the Government have chosen not to adopt. I shall limit my remarks to the Committee's recommendations on Hong Kong, although all hon. Members should endorse what the Chairman of the Committee and other colleagues have said about Taiwan.

The Select Committee made a number of recommendations about human rights in Hong Kong. It recommended, for example, that a human rights commission should be established, and that vigorous steps should be taken to press the Chinese Government to ratify the United Nations convention on human rights, the international covenant on civil and political rights and the international covenant on economic, social and cultural rights.

The joint declaration made it clear that those agreements would remain applicable to Hong Kong, but those international covenants have not yet been ratified

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by China--it appears that it has no intention of doing so. If that is still the case in July 1997, where will that leave Hong Kong? The Government have not been forthcoming either about the discussions in the Joint Liaison Group, or about the reality for Hong Kong in 1997. I understand that the head of the Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office, Lu Ping, visited Hong Kong in May last year. He said that Beijing was not obliged to make reports to the UN Commission on Human Rights after 1997, which is a cause for concern. When the Minister replies, I hope that he will say what will happen to human rights in Hong Kong after 1997. In recent months, what assurances, undertakings or even discussions and disagreements have been forthcoming from China?

Time is running out, and we need some clarification. It is not acceptable for us simply to say, as the former Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (Sir E. Heath) seemed to suggest, that human rights do not matter, so long as we get the money and achieve economic growth. I find that attitude deplorable. Human rights are a universal right --the UN convention on human rights is a universal declaration. One cannot argue that three quarters of the world's population should have human rights, but that that principle does not extend and does not matter to those who happen to be Chinese.

If "one country, two systems" is to mean anything now, for people in Hong Kong at least, it does not mean one country with a developing capitalist system in China and an already established capitalist economic system in Hong Kong. It does not mean two systems in that sense. It now means the preservation of the legal, judicial, press, free trade union and democratic, or increasingly democratic, political system of Hong Kong.

In those circumstances, it is essential that we have some assurances that, come 1997, "one country, two systems", and the 50 years after, will not shortly lead to the snuffing out of the independence of the judiciary or of people's rights to express their political opinions openly.

In Peking, people continue to speak about the leading role of the Communist party. They continue to speak, in a way, of a party state. It may be a state in which almost everything goes, but the very week in late 1993 when the Foreign Affairs Select Committee, of which I am a member, visited China, we were told that a decree had been introduced to ban satellite receiver dishes.

That is absurd, because part of the economic development in the south of China was based on the fact that, on television, companies were advertising products that were produced in Hong Kong or in the south of China. Nevertheless, that mentality continued to exist at that time, and I suspect that it persists in some quarters now. We need to know the answer to the question, what will that mean for the people of Hong Kong after 1997?

The Select Committee made several recommendations that I have no time to discuss, but it is important to mention a few issues. Citizenship and nationality have been mentioned, and a reply of sorts was given by the Foreign Secretary when I intervened earlier on the subject. The issue of the widows of service men must be tackled. Those few people deserve better treatment than the vague references that we currently receive from the Government.

We need to consider the ethnic minorities of Indian origin and other ethnic minorities living in Hong Kong. Their position is also unclear. It appears that the Chinese

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Government's attitude is that everyone who lives in Hong Kong after 1997 will be given Chinese nationality, and they will not recognise any other nationality for people living there.

Press reports that I have read, published as recently as earlier this week, say that people who will not be classified as Chinese nationals include non -ethnic Chinese in Hong Kong, ethnic Chinese who were born or have settled in foreign countries, and stateless people. In those circumstances, it appears that there will be a problem for people who are somehow left by us without the possibility of being able to extricate themselves from that position.

Will the Minister, in his reply, specifically discuss the recommendation of the Foreign Affairs Select Committee:

"We remain of the view expressed by the then Committee in 1989, that Britain has a duty to give non-Chinese ethnic minority residents of Hong Kong full British citizenship. If the Government continues to refuse to do this, we recommend that the Government state publicly that if this group encounter discrimination in the new Special Administrative Region, whether or not they face explicit pressure to leave, they will be given every help to enter Britain and acquire British nationality"?

I know that statements were made by the Home Office last year that moved a little way in that direction, but we should go further and clarify what will happen for those several thousand people who may be left in an uncertain position in two years' time.

Obviously, the position regarding Britain and China has changed since the Select Committee produced its report. Progress has been made with democratic changes, although China says that it will not abide by them in future. The Governor appears to have receded into the background, and other people are playing a more prominent role in Hong Kong politics than they were.

We must recognise that Britain continues to have responsibility, formally, legally, for the next two years. Although our power may be much less than it appears on paper, because the transformation of Hong Kong is already taking place--Chinese influence and control grows inexorably day by day-- nevertheless, in international law, and in terms of the joint declaration, Members of the House and our Government continue to have a responsibility.

Because of our history and the joint declaration, we should express our worries even after 1997. If there is any suggestion of Chinese Government pressure, or of the agreements and promises that have been made being abrogated, Members of the House have a duty to speak out loudly and clearly in defence of human rights, trade union rights and the rights of free speech and association in Hong Kong.

6.55 pm

Mr. David Mellor (Putney): I too shall be brief--high-mindedly, because it is about time that Members other than Privy Councillors were heard from the Conservative Benches, and, less high-mindedly, because I have a pressing broadcast engagement to go to.

The debate has been useful, because it shows a pretty united front in the House about those issues. Even though the fact that the House will have held a debate on Hong Kong that has been conducted in measured and responsible tones will not be conveyed any distance outside the House by the media in the United Kingdom, I hope very much that it will be reported widely in Hong

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Kong. If so, it will provide some reassurance that there is a tremendous commitment in this place to discharging the final substantial responsibility of Britain's colonial past --that of handing over Hong Kong to China.

We have done everything we can to reach an agreement that, as the hon. Member for Motherwell, South (Dr. Bray) and others have said, is fraught with difficulties. It will be a miracle if that agreement is adhered to, and we have done everything in our power to prepare the people of Hong Kong for the transition, and to negotiate with the Government of China and to internationalise the issue in a way that gives them some prospect of a happy outcome.

My association, registered in the Register of Members' Interests, with the Oriental Press Group, the largest newspaper group in Hong Kong, has given me the opportunity to visit Hong Kong several times recently.

One cannot go to Hong Kong without being enormously impressed by the extraordinary energy of the place. To me, one of the great wonders of the world is the experience of looking down from the Peak on the incredible creation that Hong Kong is. The fact that it has been able to turn itself into the eighth largest trading nation in the world is the type of formidable achievement that makes me deeply regret that that buoyant, dynamic, wonderful, free, civilised place must be handed back to a Government of the nature and character of the Government of China.

It is an irony that we can appreciate, but painful for the people of Hong Kong, that, while the balkanisation of Europe proceeds apace--seemingly, every half a dozen fields in the former Yugoslavia can obtain independence with the blessing of the international community--it has not been possible for self-determination to apply in Hong Kong.

It is deeply regrettable that, during an era that was characterised by a concerted and successful effort by the west against communism--the era of President Reagan and Mrs. Thatcher--it was felt necessary to negotiate an arrangement with China that involved handing back Hong Kong.

I do not imagine for a moment that there was an alternative. I have been re -reading Mrs. Thatcher's memoirs on that matter. It is obvious that she sought to decouple the sovereignty issue from the other issues of the future of Hong Kong that she wished to discuss. The Chinese always asserted that sovereignty was the crucial element. The Chinese Government were not willing to be swayed, and the international community did not have the resolve to take on the Chinese Government, so Hong Kong must be handed back.

It is therefore right that, in our relationship with China, we are showing patience and forbearance, and adverting as little as is consistent with our duty to the Chinese Government's lamentable record on human rights issues, which have a fundamental bearing on the arrangements that they have negotiated in Hong Kong. We are endeavouring to keep the temperature at a level that permits constructive work. It cannot be reassuring that the Chinese Government are taking issue with the relatively limited steps towards democracy that the Governor of Hong Kong has properly taken. It is a good debating point, but no better than that, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (Sir E. Heath) said, to ask why we have left it so long. One suspects that one reason is that the governance

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of Hong Kong was a matter for the civil service rather than political leadership. Having seen what Hong Kong has achieved, perhaps we should try that system here. It was inevitable that, when a politician of the front rank such as Chris Patten went to Hong Kong, he should want to make changes such as those he has advocated. The House should be proud of what the Governor has achieved.

One of the aspects that particularly strikes me when I go to Hong Kong and watch the television and read the newspapers is the extraordinary bond of affection that has grown up between the Governor and the people of Hong Kong. Whatever cavilling there may be by business men and one or two senior politicians in the House, whose enthusiasm for China has overwhelmed their judgment about the nature and character of the Chinese Government, it is clear that Chris Patten has done what every decent, humane and statesmanlike Member of the House would do if placed in that position.

I hope that the Governor will have trodden the fine line and avoided greatly provoking the Chinese Government, to whom almost anything is provocative. We cannot all live in a world where it is accepted as reasonable when the Dalai Lama is told that he can return to Tibet provided he does not do anything effective to alleviate the suffering of the people there.

That cannot be the basis for our relations with the Government of China. We must not conduct our relations with the Government of China from our knees- -certainly not from our bellies. We must show the same respect for our institutions and our beliefs in freedom and democracy as they have in theirs. Chris Patten has done as good a job as possible.

What of the future? I believe, for a range of reasons, that it will be a miracle if the one country, two systems is able to proceed. First, it is not the nature of the Chinese Government to accept dissent. As I know only too well, as I work with one of the leading newspaper companies in Hong Kong, it is part of the nature of Hong Kong to dissent. Anyone who has been the victim of a press conference in Hong Kong knows only too well that, if the press are robust in this country, they are doubly so in Hong Kong.

The Government of China as at present constituted will find it enormously difficult to tolerate that. It will require a level of patience that they were not prepared to share with their own students in Tiananmen square. It will be a miracle if the Government survive in their present form; we must all hope that they do not. They will be required to behave in a way in which they have never been able to behave before.

I wonder whether those of us who are enthusiastic about investing in China and who take a joy in the growth of the Chinese economy--there are 1.25 billion people, and growth is soaring--realise what the sleeping giant is capable of once we finally wake it from its slumbers.

We applaud the developments of an economy where wage rates are 1 per cent. of those prevailing in the European Community, while at the same time trying to harden yet further the arteries of the European economic system with devices such as the social chapter. One wonders what sort of world we will find in 50 years' time,

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if, as Deng Xiaoping suggested, 50 years after the agreement with Hong Kong, China should be a full and equal member among the ranks of developed nations.

How do we ensure that the Chinese Government behave responsibly? I suspect that the threat will come not so much from direct Chinese Government intervention to break the arrangements, as from the fact that the Chinese Government do not control much outside some of the central areas of China. A great deal depends on individual regional governments, individual powerful elements in the state and powerful individuals.

The danger for Hong Kong is corruption. The Chinese Administration are corrupt and unwieldy. The great thing about the Government of Hong Kong is that, for the most part, they run an efficient, effective society and banish those arrangements to the sidelines as a result of the vigilance of the law and order services.

I suspect that there are no easy solutions. We can internationalise the matter and try to ensure that China, as a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council, is unable to get away without signing a key United Nations convention. It is hard to think of a more fundamental United Nations convention than that pertaining to human rights. The eyes of the world community, not just those of Britain, focus on Hong Kong and the solemn obligations that the Chinese Government entered into when they signed the arrangements. I did not intend to say much about press freedom in Hong Kong, but the subject has arisen a number of times. There is something in the point made by the right hon. Member for Tweeddale, Ettrick and Lauderdale (Sir D. Steel)--I hope that I got his constituency right-- Sir David Steel indicated assent .

Mr. Mellor: Good--that is a start.

The right hon. Gentleman said that we should not leave rules that could be used oppressively by the Chinese. During my most recent visit to Hong Kong, it came as an unpleasant surprise to me to find that a shadowy tribunal exists, comprising people whose names are not published. It sits in judgment on newspapers and is able to fine them, without a hearing, for producing indecent material.

People will, I hope, be as dismayed as I was to find that one of the publications of the Oriental Press Group, the English language newspaper the Eastern Express , published a front-page picture of a young Chinese child who had been maimed in a street accident. The picture was an affecting one, of the badly scarred child clutching its mother. The aim was to launch an appeal to raise money, so that the child could have some operations to improve its face by plastic surgery and to remedy some of the other injuries. The tribunal fined the Eastern Express $HK5,000 for publishing an indecent photograph.

It is hardly an ornament to the Hong Kong Administration, of whom I otherwise warmly approve and applaud, that such mechanisms should exist. I do not think that it is an ornament to any society to think that a picture of a seriously handicapped child is indecent. Such an attitude takes us back to the Victorian age, when we used to lock away such people in asylums in the depths of the countryside so that no one was forced to gaze on them. We shall need to look carefully at one or two such aspects.

Overall, I suspect that the resilience and vigour of the people of Hong Kong will sustain them. As a child, the only things I knew of Hong Kong were the ghastly little

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plastic nick-nacks which came out of Christmas crackers, and the nastier T-shirts at the nastier end of Woolworth counters, both of which always had written on them, "Made in Hong Kong". Within that time, while our economy has, in relative terms, stood still, Hong Kong's has surged away.

Not only does Hong Kong now have one of the most dynamic economies in the world, but it is one of the most pleasant and attractive places to visit, with high-quality hotels, wonderful service in shops and marvellous public transport. Without the slightly repressive edge of the Lee Kuan Yew regime, the Hong Kong regime has managed to persuade people not to drop litter, and to behave in a civilised way--something from which all of us in this country can learn. People who have been able to attain those achievements in such a short time can surely survive what is to come when shorn of democratic institutions. That is not to deny that it is a cruel fate for Hong Kong when nations infinitely less capable of managing in the world are accepted as free and independent members of the world's community, while the extraordinary group of people in Hong Kong must be handed back to the state of China. No one should assume--I am sure that no one in the House does--that the passage ahead will be easy or clear. It will not.

7.9 pm

Mr. Denis MacShane (Rotherham): The debate so far has been wide- ranging and absolutely fascinating. From 1980 until I entered the House last year, I visited Hong Kong more times than I care to remember. Like everyone else, I found it a most exhilarating and exciting place to visit. I am sad that today's debate has attracted the presence and participation-- although it has been of a very high quality--of so few Members of Parliament. If we were grains of rice, we would hardly make a teaspoonful to feed to a baby. I think that it is the equivalent of a debate on a wet Wednesday in Dudley. The Governor of Hong Kong has not deemed the debate important enough to warrant his presence. I know that members of the Legislative Council are extremely concerned that, owing to the short notice of the debate, many have not been able to make arrangements to attend or to brief fully all Members of Parliament about the very important issues at stake.

As I said, I have visited Hong Kong many times and I have been thrilled by the dynamism and growth of the Hong Kong economy. However, we must have some sense of historic perspective. I remember reading in the history books about people returning from the Soviet Union 50 or 60 years ago and assuring people that there were yearly growth rates of 10 or 15 per cent., that jobs were being created, welfare systems were being set up and new housing was being provided. They told us that they had seen the future and that it worked. The Foreign Secretary made the good point that our trade with Taiwan is only a little less than our total trade with the whole of China. In fact, the per capita gross domestic product of the Association of South-East Asian Nations is approximately $1,400 per year compared with more than $20,000 for the European Union. Although there are some very dynamic examples of economic growth in Asia, we should not assume that our future lies

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to the east and turn our backs, as some hon. Members appear to have done, on our continuing commitment to Europe.

I agreed with the remarks of the right hon. and learned Member for Putney (Mr. Mellor). He has left the Chamber to make his broadcast; I will stay in order to listen to any further contributions that he may make to the debate later. It is very sad that we are handing over the people of Hong Kong without better preparation for the future. I expect that when 20th century diplomatic historians come to write about this period, they will deplore the hurried way in which the Prime Minister of the day, Mrs. Thatcher, blundered through the diplomacy of handing back 6 million Hong Kong people to the Chinese gulag without sufficiently safeguarding their interests. I think that history will record that as one of her greatest mistakes. Lady Thatcher was, for some, a wonderful warrior. When it came to the Falkland Islands crisis, the Gulf war or dealing with the IRA, or--to use her own words--"the enemy within", she knew what she was doing. However, when it came to diplomacy regarding Europe, South Africa or Hong Kong, she was a disaster. One could consider her to be an expert in what might be called "chopstick" diplomacy, but she held a chopstick in each hand. Anyone who has tried to eat using that method will know that it may be wondrous to behold, but it leaves an awful mess. It is that mess that the Foreign Office has been trying to clear up ever since.

The joint declaration to which many hon. Members have referred has been replaced--as the Select Committee report makes clear--by the Basic Law, which has been agreed unanimously by the People's Congress in Beijing. In opening the debate, the Foreign Secretary spoke of parliamentary exchanges. I am all for that; I would like to meet with my opposite numbers in Beijing to talk about the 10 million Chinese people who are in forced labour camps. I would like to talk about the 100 million peasants who have been uprooted from their homes and who are exploited quite ruthlessly by Chinese and foreign companies. I would like to talk about women in China who face compulsory abortions and sterilisation or about the eugenics law, as it was originally titled. I would like to talk about the prisoners who are executed in order to provide organs for transplant to sell to rich people in the west or elsewhere in Asia. They are some of the parliamentary exchanges that I would like to have if I were confident that my opposite numbers in Beijing were elected democratically in the way that we and the members of LegCo are.

All those events are well recorded; nothing that I have mentioned is a secret. If it is embarrassing for Conservative Members to hear those truths, I put it to them that no one can afford to ignore the continuing repression of human rights when it is reduced to individual life and death and exploitation in China. We should not talk about human rights in general terms; we should look at the plight of the individual. I speak with some passion on the subject because my children are one-quarter Asian. If I have understand correctly some of the comments by hon. Members on both sides of the House, three quarters of my children's identity allows them to enjoy western human rights, but one quarter does not. I believe that every human being--no matter where he or she is born--should enjoy indivisible human rights, which must be cherished.

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When some of the practices that I have described were applied in the Soviet Union, North Korea, Cuba or in Nazi Germany, Conservative Members were among the first to condemn them with immense vigour and passion. They linked whole areas of Government policy, such as trade and international politics, to attempts to stop those human rights abuses. However, because there is so much money to be made in China- -Conservative Members have been open and honest in declaring their interests--at best we skate over those issues and we do not raise the individual concerns of so many Chinese people.

In the end, we do not ask the Chinese to obey our laws or to accept a western system of values; we simply ask them to respect their own laws and culture. Classic disappearances are occurring regularly in China. Chinese citizens are being seized by plain-clothes military officers and held incommunicado. That practice breaks the Chinese law, which says that families should know where family members who have been taken prisoner are being held.

We do not know the whereabouts of Wei Jing-Shen, a great human rights campaigner who founded the democracy war 15 years ago. He was imprisoned by Deng Xiaoping--who is apparently the friend of at least one hon. Member who has spoken in the debate--and released only two or three years ago. He is the Andrei Sakharov of China. He has now been rearrested and we do not know where he is being held. We know that his assistant Tong-yi was arrested and badly beaten in prison. We should also mention Han Dong-fang, who is the leader of the Workers Autonomous Federations in Tiananmen square. We have already discussed the citizenship and passport problems of the people of Hong Kong. Han Dong-fang is a Chinese citizen and he holds a Chinese passport, but when he left the country for medical treatment and then sought to return, he was refused admission at the railway border between the new territories and China. It is to his credit that the Hong Kong Governor, Chris Patten, protested about that.

What will be Han Dong-fang's fate after 1997? I tabled written questions to that effect last year, but as yet I have received no satisfactory reply. Han Dong-fang has been my guest on the Terrace at the House of Commons. What will hon. Members say if he is arrested after 1997? If there is a change of Government--I sincerely hope that there will be--what will my hon. Friend the Member for Livingston (Mr. Cook) have to say if he is Foreign Secretary?

We have an opportunity to raise some of those issues by focusing on what we can do in Hong Kong. We have 800 days, which should be long enough. It is equivalent to two parliamentary Sessions and, my goodness, we can get through some Acts of Parliament in this place in 800 days. What, then, should we do during that period? We should encourage the civil society in Hong Kong to sink deeper and deeper roots between now and July 1997.

I reinforce the importance of what hon. Members on both sides of the House have referred to: freedom of information. Hong Kong is currently our only eyeglass into China. The Far East Economic Review , the Asian Wall Street Journal and other media now operating in Hong Kong provide far more information about what is happening in China than can correspondents and

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