CONFIDENTIAL
7
-c
and substance of the sixth National People's Congress. Dai had never asked for anything more than his deserved payment for contributions to HK publications, a spokesman for Cheng Ming, a "respected leftist magazine in Hong Kong", was quoted by the SCMP as saying. A Cheng Ming editor said the charges were groundless, but admitted a monthly payment of $250 to Dai for contributing articles, all of which were factual and known to most people in China. The spokeswoman said Cheng Ming would run its own version of the story in its next issue, and an article by Dai would also be published to show that no state secrets had been revealed. The monthly was banned from China in August of last year. The Standard pointed out that under Chinese law anything not approved for circulation outside China could be declared a state secret.
7.
PRESS LINES:
Comment during the week centred mainly on three topics - the new immigration policy for arrivals from China; Mr. Walden's speech; and Mr. Ren Zhongyi's statement. Apart from these, the Express continued to criticise the "HK people to administer HK" option. It said there were two purposes why China made such a proposition. Firstly, it tried to create a notion among HK residents that the die was cast and the diplomatic talks were only confined to transitional arrangements in order to mislead HK people to accept "reality". Secondly, it was meant to be cosmetic to allay fear and worry. The paper said the people to administer this place under the self-rule option would naturally be appointed by Beijing and be responsible to the Chinese Government. They would not respect individual rights and freedom. It also said the "three unchanges" would never be tolerated under the insistence of four principles of socialism. Responding to the last point, the left-wing New Evening Post said since the new Constitution had affirmed various social systems the continuity of capitalism in HK would not clash with China's overall economy, and hence the "three unchanges" would not stand in the way of "insistence of four principles". It pointed out that the Special Administrative Regions as prescribed in Article 31 of the new Constitution were in plural form and this indicated that the provision would also apply to HK apart from Taiwan. Commenting on the opening of the 11th communist youth corps conference in China, the paper said in another editorial that while youths in China were striving to help China, young people in HK should show determination and courage to learn the necessary skills to help HK establish as an SAR.
As in previous weeks, the HK Times remained highly critical of China's stance. It was cynical about Mr. Ren Zhongyi's statement and about a recent editorial in the New Evening Post which asserted that people in China enjoyed more freedom and civil rights than their counterparts in HK. It said such propaganda would only do China a disservice because no one would believe that a communist country would enjoy more freedom than HK. The paper also published an open letter by the alumni of university graduates in Taiwan which, among other anti-communist assertions, said that talks on sovereignty over HK should be shelved until China had unified.
CONFIDENTIAL