onstruction and several independent polls have shown that 70 percent of those asked were opposed to Daya Bay. Lee is ridiculed in some circles as a troublemaker, but t h e issue has become a test case to see how much attention Beijing will pay to Hong Kong public opinion. Thus far, the PRC has shown no intention of halting its construction plans.9 The Hong Kong settlement presented a major challenge to the Republic of Chi n a government. Taipei claims to represent all of China, yet it had no role at all in the negotiations. But the ROC does support the renunciation of all unequal treaties signed by China in the 19th century and supports the recovery of Hong Kong to Chinese ( n ot PRC) sovereignty. A complicating factor is the importance of Hong Kong as Taiwan's third largest trading partner after the U.S. and Japan. The ROC has established special study groups to work out policy regarding trade with Hong Kong after 1997. Taipei does not permit direct trade with the mainland, although roughly $1.5 billion in indirect trade passes through Hong Kong each year. On September 26, 1984, ROC Premier Yu Kuo-hua declared that his country would not recognize the agreement between London an d Beijing, but that the ROC would assist the people of Hong Kong by: o exposing Beijing's conspiratorial activities in Hong Kong; o promoting world support of freedom and prosperity in Hong Kong and helping the people there express their desire for freedom and democracy and opposition to communism;9 . See Far Eastern Economic Review September 4, 1986, pp. 16-17.
8\u239\'95 assisting those who want to remain in Hong Kong and struggle for freedom; \u239\'95 supporting those who want to participate in elections in Hong Kong; \u239\'95 helping those from Hong Kong who wish to settle in Taiwan; \u239\'95 easing entry and exit permits for Hong Kong residents visiting Taiwan; \u239\'95 assisting those who want to invest in Taiwan or who wish to trade with or deposit their money in Taiwan; \u239\'95 assistin Taiwan. Og those who wish to send their children to study in Some ROC scholars have even seen the Hong Kong settlement as an opportunity for Taipei to move politically against the communist mainland. In a paper presented befo re the Fifteenth Sino-American conference on mainland China held in Taipei June 8-14, 1986, Professor Peter Kien-hong Yu of National Sun Yat-sen University said: The ROC ... should wait for the day that Hong Kong officially becomes part of China. In the m eantime, it should try to secure what it has now in that British colony, while at the same time, expand its influence and try to gain a majority in the Hong Kong Legislative Council and Urban and Regional Councils. By controlling the Hong Kong electoral b odies, the ROC, theoretically speaking, would be able to exert direct influence and neutralize the PRC in as many as eighteen different scenarios. Without question, the Hong Kong settlement provides the ROC with both challenges and opportunities that would not otherwise exist. Exactly how Taipei will attempt to use the situation to its advantage is one of the most intriguing questions in Chinese studies at this time. one pattern that has already emerged is the unofficial message that Taipei can't really co n sider reunification until it sees how the Hong Kong settlement works out after 1997. The May 1986 talks between representatives of the ROC's China Airlines (CAL) and the Civil Aviation Administration of China over the return of a CAL Boeing 747 freighter and two of its crew members may mean that Hong Kong will become more of a symbolic meeting place between Taipei and Beijing in the future.
10. Chung-vang iih-gao, September 27, 1984, p. 1. See also Shaw Yu-ming, "An ROC View of the Hong Kong Issue," Issues and Studies June 1986, pp. 'b-30. The entire issue was devoted to the Hong Kong problem.9
The U.S. position on the CAL talks was "no comment," a stance praised in Taipei and understood in Beijing. Similarly, on the principle that it was solely an issue between the United Kingdom and the PRC, the U.S. government did not p