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Mr Rifkind: Well, can I say this to you Mr Lee, I noticed the odds that you were offering. Maybe we will want to come back to this discussion at some future stage. Far be it for me to anticipate what the financial implications might be, but please do not jump to conclusions. I think it would be very unwise and inaccurate to jump to conclusions. Of course on the other matter to which you referred, there was a difference of view and we expressed that difference of view. We didn't equivocate about it. We didn't imply that there was other matters of that kind. So far as the particular question I am being asked about at the moment, there needs to be a discussion and that discussion has not yet taken place for the reasons I mentioned earlier - - -
Mr Martin Lee: Why don't you back-up the Governor by accepting my wager?
Mr Rifkind: Time will tell. Time will tell and then we might have a further conversation.
Mr Allen Lee: Foreign Secretary, before I ask you a question on boat people, I just hope - and I'm sure members of this council will join me - when you say "time will tell", I would like to invite you back to this council in Hong Kong in January next year and perhaps you will answer not so hypothetical questions about provisional LegCo. And certainly, I hope your Party stays in power and you continue to be the Foreign Secretary so you can answer those questions directly. By then I'm sure they will be not so hypothetical questions.
My question is with regard to the Vietnamese boat people. This is a long- standing problem that Hong Kong has shouldered and there is a British undertaking about resolving this boat people problem by 1997; perhaps repatriation. But so far, still there are 20,000 boat people left in Hong Kong and no visible solutions. Only this morning we saw the newspaper reporting there will be a meeting in Bangkok in the middle of this month. Now, what is the British responsibility towards these boat people if - if even though you say it may be hypothetical it might become visible - if they are left over in Hong Kong by 1997? Can you say that there will be no boal people left over in Hong Kong, as a statement to the people of Hong Kong? I'm sure we would welcome that.
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