Hong Kong workers face collapse of the boom

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Property firms have crashed, the banks remain jittery period - the FTU's pro- China's "new realism".

has meant the subordina- revenue, Hong Kong tion of Hong Kong workers' being used by China's interests to China's econ- leadership as a model in omic needs for a flourishing intensifying productivity canitalist Hong Kong. of lahour. "THE worst seems to be over? , headlined today's English daily, the South China Morning Post business news section.

The article recalled a disastrous year for this British Crown Colony's economy, but pinned hopes on better days to come when the US economy comes out of recession.

During the post-war boom years, Hong Kong's export-led economic growth was spectacular -its textiles, toys and electronic goods penetrated every Western market. Although land and labour costs have become higher than the rest of the Far East, huge investments by local and international capital have brought about continued technological innovations. and maintained high productivity.

As the western economies have stagnated in recent years, their curbs on imported goods, especially textiles, have begun to take their toll.

Skyward

Investment " in Hong Kong was channelled into land and property speculation - office blocks and luxury flats rocketed skyward, and sometimes were pulled down before even being occupied in order to build gnother building twice as high! Prices went through the roof, fuelled by banks throwing caution to the winds and competing to offer credit to property tycoons.

The long-overdue collapse of this boom was triggered by discussion of sovereignty over Hong Kong between Britain and China. So far two property firms have crashed, with several others facing a similar fate next year. Many international banks remain jittery, unable to recover their funds while empty office blocks dominate the skyline.

Brunt

The Hong Kong working class, 2.5 million strong, has borne the brunt of the recession. The official unemployment rate is 4%, which hides considerable under-employment. Over one-third of the 900,000 employed in the manufacturing sector work in textiles, and this sector is unlikely to boom even if and when the US economy recovers, given ever stricter import controls.

Trade union membership, which has fallen from 404,000 in 1977 to 345,000 last year, is organised in two major federations, with the pro-Peking FTU taking the brunt of the membership decline. The transport and seamen's unions are, a pale shadow of their heyday in the 1920s when the British administration was rendered totally impotent during a nine month long Hong Kong-Canton general strike.

Neither federation has led any substantial industrial actions in the past through which China earns about a third of its foreign currency.

Workers in China face increasing pressures too - the recently revised Constitution has banned the right to strike, and new workers are now hired on contract, instead of the • Iron ricebuwı ul guarauteed life employment as This is of course being applauded by the Hong Kong press as part of Apart from foreign Citizens Tomorrow Hong Kong citizens become a new type of species - citizens of British Dependent Territories, as decreed under the UK Nationality Act. Immigration controls have already denied Hong Kong people the automatic right of entry to Britain in the past, and this change is part of the same racist and sexist process.

From now on, babies born in the UK are no longer to be British citizens automatically, (if both the parents come from Hong Kong but are not British subjects, the child born in the UK is stateless!), and even the third rate British Dependent Territories citizenship is now not conferred on those born in Hong Kong - they have to apply and are subject to a process like naturalisation. They have to show loyalty to the Crown, be "of good character", etc.

Socialists are not saying that full British citizenship is God's gift to Hong Kong workers, to be grasped with both hands. Nevertheless, Britain's attempts to wash its hands of all responsibility for those Chinese who are some form of British citizen by accident of birth or otherwise, should be thoroughly condemned.

A final ironic note -Wilfred Newton, managing director of Turner and Newall UK (of asbestos fame) is the next chairman of Hong Kong's Mass Transit Railwar Corporation - a compan! financially reliant on lanc speculation, and with 8 notorious reputation for poor wages and working conditions.

CHAN YING Hong Kong, December 30

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Socialist Organiser no. 116, 20 January 1982, page 6 no. 116, 20 January 1982, page 6

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sno Peking stance in particular