XN000022-1993-04-02 — Page 9

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FRIDAY, APRIL 2, 1993

him in the paper this morning going off to Peking and I was delighted to see him clutching his British passport, I don't think that one should regret anybody operating as an advisor to China. I just hope that they give fair advice, I hope that they give it fearlessly, and I hope that Chinese officials listen. I think the broader the spectrum of advice that China listens to, the better. There are some people in Hong Kong who've regretted that there isn't a single, directly elected legislature among all those that are advising China. Well, I'm sure that China, in due In the meantime, Sir course, will want to make up that gap. David Akers-Jones and all others will I hope give China good advice and I hope that advice will be, will include to cooperate with the Hong Kong government and the United Kingdom to implement succesefully the joint declaration, and I hope that advice will also be to take seriously what the joint declaration says about Hong Kongs

incomparable way of life.

3. That's a proposal which has been put to me on a number of and by others. The view that I've occasions by some legislatoRS arrived at is that I don't want to do anything which will enable our Legislative Council to think that it can duck out of its responsibilities to pass the legislation to put in place election I'm a little arrangements for the 1994 and 1995 elections. suspicious of referendums as a populist device, which I think may be an argument which is now slightly more popular in Europe than I think that there is it would have been a few months ago. sometimes a danger of a referendum enabling legislatures to cop Nevertheless, were there a out of

of their responsibilities. referendum today, and were it to give the proposals put forward by the government the same sort of margin support as they enjoy of in opinion polls, I'd be delighted.

4. Yes, I think that there is a strong view in Hong Kong in favour of trying to resolve our disagreements around the table and I must say that is a view which I support, myself, otherwise, I think that had we I wouldn't have been pressing for talks. accepted China's precondition for talks, there would have been from some of the a great deal of criticism, justifiably,

The, I suppose one could political parties to which you refer. say, conservative business party with a small "c" and a small "b", which just to confuse people calls itself the Liberal party. with a large "L", or is going to call itself the Liberal party, the leader of that party, the day before I published the bill, said unequivocally on a radio programme that he thought the question of Hong Kong Government officials as part of the British team was not something which China should have raised and that China should back off from that particular matter. I'm not sure whether that's the same point of view that he's expressing, now that he's a China adviser.

SESITIVE

/5. AS YOU