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Mr Cheng Yiu-tong (in Chinese): Well, I do hope that you Mr Governor will be able to meet with Director Lu. And last time I talked about your using your charisma to charm him to Hong Kong. Now that Director Lu is in Hong Kong but you won't be meeting him and this evening Mrs Anson Chan will be meeting Mr Lu and also Mr Zhou Nan would you make use of the charisma of Mrs Anson Chan? Or, the Foreign Office officials will be also meeting them at the weekend, and then would you make use of them so as to clarify the issues so that you can protect our interests, the interests of the Legislative Council that is?
Governor: I am not sure that my charisma or lack of it has anything to do with whether or no Director Lu will meet me. There is of course an obligation on us to meet, regularly, under the MOU on the airport. It is not me that is preventing that happening.
The South China Morning Post didn't like it when I said that I thought the civilised thing to do for people in Director Lu's position and mine was to meet and talk, as happened elsewhere in the world. Well let me put the point in another way. Everybody knows in this community that it would be in the interests of Hong Kong for us to meet and discuss matters. Everybody knows that there is hardly anything that would send a better signal to the community and the outside world. When I say hardly anything, there is one thing and that is if Chinese officials would bring themselves - which they will have to do sooner or later to begin a dialogue with those who represent the majority of public opinion here in Hong Kong.
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But in the absence of Director Lu or other Chinese officials meeting me, I hope that they will have many and increasingly frequent fruitful meetings with the Chief Secretary and other senior members of my Administration. I hope that that will be the pattern for the future, even if this Patten won't be part of it.
But nothing that has been said, nothing that will be said, no reflection of anyone's charisma, is going to change the fundamentals of the position on the Legislative Council, on the Bill of Rights, on the application of the International Covenants in Hong Kong and on the faithful and successful implementation of the Joint Declaration.
End