BEIJING : Runway to Prosperity
British Prime Minister John Major is to arrive in China next Monday on a three-day visit during which he and Chinese Premier Li Peng will sign an agreement on construction of a new airport in Hong Kong.
Agreement on the massive $16-billion construction project, announced in early July, helped touch off a Hong Kong stock market rally. But critics say it also has opened the door to increased Chinese interference in the British colony before its scheduled reversion to Chinese sovereignty in 1997.
Major’s visit, the first by a European head of government since the 1989 massacre of pro-democracy demonstrators in Beijing, comes just three weeks after Japanese Prime Minister Toshiki Kaifu visited Beijing. Taken together, the two events mark the virtual end of diplomatic sanctions against China imposed by the industrialized democracies at that time.
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