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Albert Morin of La Grande, Oregon, asks:
Do you feel that the restrictions on China found in the
joint 1984 declaration between Britain and China concerning
the returning of Hong Kong will be enforceable on China?
Dr. DeGolyer reponds:
Enforceable by whom? Enforcing anything on a sovereign power is difficult,
and to do so against one of some 1.2 billion people, nuclear armed, a permanent
member of the U.N. Security Council (with veto), and one of the world's biggest
and most rapidly growing economies is even more problematic. The U.N. has
difficulty merely passing toothless resolutions against human rights abuses in
China, and the U.S. has divorced MFN from human rights issues, having found the
cost of implementing even limited sanctions against China too high (too high
politically or too high economically, or both, depending on whom you read).
Britain alone cannot enforce anything against China. It tried to get China to
go to the International Court in their dispute over the Provisional Legislative
Council and China merely ignored it. Britain's best hope of influence lies in
persuading the E.U. and the U.S. and other powers like Canada and Australia to
join it in pressuring China, and Britain's own ties with the E.U. are troubled
enough to weaken its ability to call in favors of its allies in that
organization. (This may begin to change soon after the upcoming election in
Britain which must be held by May 1997.)
Only major economic and political
costs, and the loss of face, and major internal upheaval, and massive
international public agitation could possibly make Chinese leaders back away
from doing what they deem necessary in the case of Hong Kong if they feel it
threatens their grasp on power. But even then I have doubts. All of the above
applied in 1989, but the reaction to the 4 June Tiananmen Square events by the
world has strengthened China's leader's conviction that they merely have to
tough it out, wait, and all their troubles will eventually fade as terror and
memory are overcome by trade and money.
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