TUESDAY, MAY 4, 1993
32
MR. BERGER: What do you tell the nervous
businesspeople in Hong Kong when they say you're just
stirring up trouble with Peking; we have to live here when
you leave?
GOVERNOR PATTEN: Yes, some of them do, though I
know that not all of those who criticize are in that
category. There are quite a few who are robustly critical
who have, like me, a British passport or a Canadian
passport or an American passport.
But I do think very hard about the almost 6
million people in Hong Kong who will be there after 1997.
And that I think, as well, that if I am not standing up
for their way of life before 1997, there's rather less
chance of anybody standing up for their way of life after
1997.
A more fundamental point that I try to put to the business community is one that I touched on in my
remarks earlier. Hong Kong hasn't been successful just
because of the capitalist model of allocation of
resources. Our way of life is about much more than
capitalism. It's, if you like, about market economics
operating within rules, within regulations, within the
rule of law. Erode the rule of law and you knock away the foundations of Hong Kong's prosperity.
How can you
guarantee a commercial contract if you haven't got the
rule of law fiercely and fearlessly implemented?
/So businessmen