As the Governor has said, we believe it should be possible to
reach an accord which meets the concerns of both sides. But we
are not prepared to give away our principles in order to sign a piece of paper. It must be an agreement which we can honourably commend to Hong Kong. That remains the objective. But it is
now clear to all concerned that we only have weeks rather than months to reach agreement. Whatever the outcome, it will clearly still be important for Britain and China to cooperate
over Hong Kong. We and the Hong Kong Government have every intention of working with China in all the many fields where this makes sense: in the JLG, in all the government and civil service contacts with China, in cooperation over security matters and so on. In the economic field we hope the Chinese side will turn their words into deeds and agree soon on financing arrangements to allow the new airport to be completed. We hope too that they will soon give agreement for the Ninth
Container Terminal to go ahead.
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