End the British Empire's

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Chan Ying proposes a campaign to end Britain's claim to Hong Kong Hanoi Hong Kong ingkok Bati AT PHILIPPINES VIETNAM lloile Malaya INDONESIA LAOS THAILAND KAMP.

rha-thi arrangement (sic) not unlike the Falklands. But there is a wide gulf between such a post-1997 British administration and the SEZ envisaged by China in terms of 'money, language, passports and legal system' as the FEER puts it.

Failed

For socialists, it is a tragedy that 33 years after the present regime took power in 1949, it has failed to demonstrate to Hong Kong Chinese the superiority of a nationalised, planned economy over a capitalist jungle of a sweatshop under British colonial rule. On the contrary, the everyday experience of the Hong Kong working class is that of sending • remittances back to relatives in Guangdong province because most foodstuffs denied them are shipped to Hong Kong instead; of friends and relatives queuing to get TaipeiR (Portugal)

(Brit)

) Baguid Tarl -o Quezon City Mae South Chine Sea Spratty Becaw out of China either by illegal emigration or by bribes just as one has to bribe Hong Kong police and government bureaucrats.

Hong Kong Chinese have no love for their British colonial masters whom they see as parasitical overlords, and they see Hong Kong as part of China, but they are in no hurry to exchange one set of bureaucrats for another, when this further depresses their living standards and offers them perhaps even less control over their everyday lives.

There is growing disquiet in Hong Kong that the Peking and London governments, in conjunction with their respective local agents in Hong Kong, will make all the decisions above the heads of the working people who have for decades toiled to produce the superprotits.

The negotiations between Britain and China are likely to be drawn out and conducted in secret. Hong Kong people will be kept in the dark. while debate on the question in Luzon Davao bargaining points for Thatcher. China could be forced yet again into another unequal treaty with imperialism.

The working class in Hong Kong must become an active force instead of passive victim, as in the 20s when the colony was under the control of the seamen'sand later the Hong KongCanton" strike committee.

Unfortunately the CCP at all levels is incapable of winning the trust of Chinese workers. Bribery and corruption has intensified in the past few years as a result of economic policies allowing capitalists toehold into the Chinese economy. But unless the working class in Hong Kong is mobilised against both imperialism and local capitalists, then they will yet again be passive victims of whatever the CCP imposes on them, just as the CCP imposed its will on the working class as its army marched into China's cities in 1949.

The trade unions in Hong Kong, led by pro-Peking Stalinists, have subordinated the Hong Kong working class to the Chinese bureaucracy's foreign policy. But socialists in Hong Kong should campaign for a democratically elected assembly there which could take control, throw out the British and negotiate terms with Peking for integration in China on condition of protection for local auto nomy and trade union rights. Hong Kong socialists should fight for the expropriation of capitalist holdings in Hong Kong by the Chinese state, but also for workers' control.

Socialists in Britain should campaign for Britain to renounce unconditionally its claim to the colony. Chinese workers cannot rely on British imperialism. not the CCP for democracy and a better standard of living; for that they will have to struggle to forge their own destiny. It is the duty of the British working class to support that struggle by fighting bere for the end of British colonialism in Hong Kong.

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Kuala/Lumper, SINGAPORE Kuching Sarawak