TRANSCRIPT A PORBIGE SBC
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HONG KONG
PC
4 JULY 1989
5
(QUESTIONS AND ARSVBRS)
QUESTION (Simon Macklin, South China Morning Post):
Sir Geoffrey, while this visit may have been of value to you,
what value do you think it has been to the people of Hong Kong since
you have been able to say so little?
POREIGN SECRETARY:
All those who have claimed to speak for the people of Hong
Kong, including some of those most anxious about the future, have
expressed themselves very grateful for my visit here precisely
because it has given them the plainest possible opportunity to
express to me their anxieties and their constructive proposals for
the future. And I have no doubt that had I not come at a time of
such critical importance for Hong Kong that the South China Morning
Poet would not have been diffident in criticising me for failing to
turn up.
I have come here because I want to hear and meet people on
the spot, to assess for myself and also to make certain very clear
statements of the kind that I have made in the statement that I have
just givan.