18
Understanding of July 1991 specifically obliged the (British)
Hong Kong authorities to leave financial reserves of at least HK$
25
billion for the new administration in 1997. The issue
continued to delay further developments on the airport well into
the following year and it has become thoroughly embroiled with
the dispute over the Patten proposals. Consider for example
Premier Li Peng's response to Governor Chris Patten's remarks
that the projected airport should be seen as a 'dowry' bequeathed
by the departing British rather than as the financial millstone
portrayed by the Chinese side: Li is reported to have said,
"During the more than 100 years of its role, which began in 1884
[sic],
the British Empire took away much more wealth than the
'dowry' it will leave in 1997." He added that the airport's cost
was too high and that it would bring financial difficulties to
the territory after 1997. For good measure he concluded with a
calculated sting, "Hong Kong has many public servants who will
be paid pensions in the future. One should not let the newly
established SAR get bogged down in a financial plight."7
(3) There has been a tendency on each side to view the other
as engaged in calculated coordinated acts as if playing out a
carefully conceived and controlled plan of operations. Every word
and gesture by politicians and officials is read as a signal
intended to convey subtle messages, with the implication that,
unlike its own, the other side's government exercises tight
control over all the different manifestations of relations with
7
Ta Kung Pao 16 October 1992 in BBC Summary of World Broadcasts, Part 3, Far East (henceforth SWB) FE/1515 A2/3.