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The Governor's "Letter to Hong Kong"
Following is the text of the Governor, the Rt Hon Christopher Patten's broadcast on RTHK's "Letter to Hong Kong" this (Sunday) moming:
I was going to talk to you this morning about other matters. About human rights. About democratic development. About our superb civil service.
And then in the early hours of Thursday morning we heard the news about Mr Deng's death, followed by all the comment and the speculation. That made me think that I should concentrate today on one simple fundamental point which we are always in danger of overlooking.
Hong Kong is one of the greatest cities in the world. It's a city which has grown to success through all the ups and downs of the history of this region over the last 50 years. It's had to take in its stride momentous events. Many people are here because of those events. But we've coped. Coped, grown, prospered, succeeded. We've been an example to the world of what men and women are capable of doing in pretty difficult circumstances. It's an example that the rest of the world looks to with wonder. And that's of course one reason why people in other countries are so fascinated in how we manage the changes that are taking place this year.
Now I want to say some things about Hong Kong which you may or may not know. I don't want this to sound too much like a volume of the Hong Kong statistical digest. But I want to underline just why no-one should think that Hong Kong is the plaything of events. I can't speculate any more successfully than the next man or woman about what is going to happen in China or by extension what's going to happen here as a result of Mr Deng's death. I just say in passing, that the speculation is exactly that speculation - and however authoritative people may sound, nobody knows for certain what is or is not going to happen.
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But what we do know - it's not speculation - is what sort of a place Hong Kong is. What sort of a place it's become. What we know is that it's a strong enough community, a healthy and stable enough community, to withstand almost anything which the history of the coming months and years may throw at it.