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Governor's transcript
Following is the transcript of the Governor's media session after opening the Museum of Medical Sciences this (Friday) afternoon:
Question: Yesterday the Preparatory Committee recommended that permanent residents ...
Governor: I don't know what they recommend.
Question: They recommend....
Governor: I mean I read the newspapers, but what we're all waiting for is some formal statement. Clearly everyone in Hong Kong and a lot of Hong Kong families outside would like as soon as possible the practical details of how the Preparatory Committee and Chinese officials propose to implement the assurance Mr Qian Qichen gave in January that everybody who has permanent residence in Hong Kong today will have it after 1997. Now I read the reports this morning which were interesting and suggested that we are soon going to hear some proposals. All I would add is that I hope that those proposals can be swiftly discussed by our experts because it will be the Hong Kong Government, it will be the Immigration Department after 1997 which will actually have to implement these proposals whatever they are. So I very much hope that we can have expert talks very quickly and that the proposals themselves will be as generous and open-minded as possible.
Question:
suggested that it is not feasible for international law for one to give up his own consular protection in such way.
Governor: Well, I don't want to be a spoilsport, but you can't really expect me to comment on something which hasn't yet been announced. I read the things that have been leaked in newspapers and they may or may not be accurate. But what it underlines is the importance if there are proposals of them being discussed with us as soon as possible because there are all sorts of matters to consider. There is the administrative problems that may arise and our Immigration Department are in the best position to discuss how those could be solved. There are conceivably questions of international agreements which have to be considered as well. All I want to make clear is that we would welcome as rapidly as possible a pragmatic and open-minded way of dealing with this issue and of honouring the promise that was very sensibly made by Mr Qian Qichen in January. The sooner we can have a proposal and the sooner we can discuss it with our experts the better. But we've been pressing for expert talks since January, so I hope they can go ahead soon.