TUESDAY, MAY 4, 1993
26
China has been no exception to that economic
development. MFN helped China's spectacular economic
performance over the last 14 years of increasing
liberalism in economic policy, a policy which the Chinese
leadership have pursued with considerable dexterity and
elan, 14 years of average 9 percent growth a year. That
growth has been led by the regions with the greatest
freedom to invest, with the greatest freedom to build and
to trade.
Those in the vanguards of the movement of
economic reform are inevitably those who have benefitted
most from it. Equally, they would be the regions and they
would be the people who would lose most if we were to cut
off that trade, and I have to say that Hong Kong itself
stands four square in chat category. We have been a part
of China's economic miracle, contributing to it and
benefitting from it.
Saying this, I'm not speaking, as you will know,
on China's behalf. I happen to believe that MFN, that
trade, that opening up China's economy, that economic
liberalism, that all those things are good not just for
the standard of living of people in China, but for the quality of life of China's citizens.
But I'm not an official spokesman for the PRC.
The PRC has other words which have been used about me.
Prostitute, serpent, Buddha, tango dancer
(Laughter.)
GOVERNOR PATTEN:
a particularly obscure one
which has slightly confused my wife.
(Laughter.)
/GOVERNOR PATTEN:
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GOVERNOR PATTEN:
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