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Question: Yes, but I would put it to you that that's not policy making. That's back slapping.
Governor: Well, steady on. I mean if inflation was going up rather than going down, if unemployment was going up rather than going down, if crime figures were going up rather than going down, if taxes had gone up rather than gone down, you wouldn't say that the Government had nothing to do with that. You'd say, what a rotten Government. Well the fact of the matter is that all the indicators I've suggested, which are profoundly important for peoples' livelihood have been heading in the right direction and that wasn't what was predicted. Everybody said two, three, four, five, 10 years ago that the closer we got to 1997, the more Hong Kong would find itself riven by social disorder and facing economic calamity and it is to Hong Kong's credit and I might say a little to credit of the Government, that that hasn't happened and that we're actually extremely well placed to make the best of the millennium.
Question (in Chinese): I have two questions for the Governor. First question; I think the Governor doesn't know what the community wants and he knows that the majority is against the provisional legislature. However, as the representative of Government, why doesn't he challenge the provisional legislature legally? There are certain groups of people who are doing it in the community, is this the reason why the Administration is not doing it or is it because they want a better relationship with China? Because we want a democratic transition, that is according to the JD. But when you refuse to take that step, are you actually merely paying lip service to saying that you protect Hong Kong's democracy, rule of law etc?
And then secondly, I know that in the Western communities they have a human rights commission and yet in Hong Kong it seems as if this has been vetoed by the Hong Kong Administration. But you are stressing human rights and civil liberties and civil rights. Why won't you set up this commission? If you are worried that this particular commission will be marginalised or infiltrated by China. Now if you think in that way are you actually binding yourself hand and foot and what if you don't do these things, can you explain why you were so daring in your constitutional reforms? Now you stress that you will protect Hong Kong's rule of law and human rights and what exactly, what specifically have you got and do you have new thinking on this?
Governor: Well, can I first of all say that we, the British Government, the Hong Kong Government, the Governor, me, we do want a good relationship with China but we also want a good relationship with Hong Kong. I don't want to appear to be sacrificing the interests of Hong Kong in order to secure occasional bouquets or plaudits from Chinese officials. I don't think I'd be thanked for that.