FOREIGN SECRETARY
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SPEECH
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LONDON
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16 SEPTEMBER 1991
(QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS)
QUESTION:
Inaudible.
9
FOREIGN SECRETARY:
I think so, this was one of the reasons behind the Nationality Act
and the offer which we made against a good deal of domestic
opposition here and a certain amount of criticism from Peking of
the offer of British passports, it was designed to persuade key
personnel in administration but also more widely to remain in Hong
Kong and the applications which have come in, considerably above
the quota laid down, suggest that this, with its modest
intentions, has worked pretty well.
It is a matter of confidence, is it not, I think that confidence
was shaken, confidence once shaken is not easy to restore but I
think wê,
and by we I mean everybody sitting here in the front row
here, Mr Lu Ping, Lydia Dunne, Simon Murray, everybody in
different ways has worked to regain and restore the confidence
which will enable people to stay. Confidence that between now
and 1997 there will remain an able, competent Hong Kong
government, increasingly cooperating with China but retaining the
authority of government and that after 1997 the SAR, the Special
Autonomous Region, will implement fully the Joint Declaration.
believe that task of rebuilding confidence has begun reasonably
well and we shall continue.
I