XN000022-1995-01-15 — Page 3

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Transcript of Governor's media session

The following is a transcript of the media session by the Governor, the Rt Hon Christopher Patten, after officiating at the opening of the Community Chest Island Walk this (Sunday) morning:-

Question: British newspapers said that the Chinese and the British side had a secret deal to improve the Sino-British relationship. Is it true?

Governor: I don't know anything more than the newspapers have reported about that and, obviously, it's a matter for the British Trade Commissioner here and for the British Embassy in Peking but it is not a very surprising story. There are a huge number of exports from Britain to China just as there're a lot of exports from China to Britain and Britain is the largest European investor in China. A good deal of British investment in China is guaranteed by a form of insurance called export credits and it's not very surprising that this particular understanding is backed by export credits. It's not actually cash. It's, as I say, a sort of insurance policy so I don't think it's a particularly exceptional thing, just an indication of the trade relationship between Britain and China which continues.

Question: Lu Ping said any transfer of senior civil servants should be made directly to the Chinese Government, not the SAR...

Governor: Well, I think we want to distinguish between the real issue here and what seems to become a rather notional, theoretical issue. But nobody is arguing that there isn't a relationship between the transfer of sovereignty and the transfer of assets. Of course, there is. We all recognise that but the specific question here is what personal information about civil servants should be sent to Peking and we've already provided a huge amount of information on civil servants. We've provided general information about the civil service regulations and the civil service structure and we've provided specific information about the biographical details of civil servants, about salary levels and so on. Now, what more does anyone want and why should people be talking about sending to Peking information which we wouldn't dream of sending to London and which London wouldn't dream of asking for. I think that people should be specific about what additional information they have. There is one other thing I would say. I do think and I say this in the most moderate way, I do think people should be rather careful about the consequences of what they say. Last week, the PWC was making remarks about the Hong Kong Monetary Authority. Well, you couldn't have chosen a much worse week for doing that and I think you'd only have to look at the newspapers to see some of the assumptions that people were drawing about those remarks. It's not helpful nor is it helpful to make remarks which make some civil servants worry about the future. We want civil servants to go on after 1997 working in as good an environment as they have now. We want as many civil servants to transfer through sovereignty in 1997. We want a smooth transition. That means that we all have to be very careful of what we say, reinforce the civil service morale rather than the reverse.