XN000022-1995-04-27 — Page 10

Governor: Sometimes the greatest eloquence is silence and I'll respond just as one of my senior colleagues and secretaries responded not yesterday but last week. We have many responsibilities, my colleagues and I, which keep us occupied night and day. Those responsibilities, the Honourable Member will know, don't include on my part or on any of my secretaries' part, responsibility for the activities of the Communist Party of China and I think that we have quite enough to do answering questions about things for which we are responsible without branching out in the speculative and exotic way in which we are invited to do. I'm sure that had anybody spoken yesterday they would have been as eloquent on the subject under discussion, which seemed to provoke what I think is called euphemistically a lively debate, I think they would have been as eloquent on that subject as they are on every other. But I repeat that sometimes silence is golden.

Mr K K Fung (through interpreter): Thank you Mr President, I would like to ask the Governor this question. Now, he said he welcomed Mr Lu Ping to meet with him. I would like to know whether you, Mr Governor, have given a formal invitation to Mr Lu Ping so that when he comes to Hong Kong you can meet him to discuss transition matters because many people in Hong Kong would like to see you and Mr Lu Ping meeting formally in Hong Kong. So my first question is whether you have given any formal invitation to Mr Lu Ping and if so, have you received a response? And if you haven't received any response have you thought about other ways in order to have such a meeting with Mr Lu Ping?

Governor: I've given two recent formal invitations, though as I said earlier, I think that Director Lu Ping will know that there is a standing invitation whenever he seeks to take it up. But to be absolutely explicit and to relate it directly to Director Lu Ping's visit to Hong Kong in the middle of May, we have given two direct invitations, the first of which was in February so that he would have plenty of time to consider it because I know that people's diaries get filled up very quickly. I have also, to repeat what I said to the other Honourable Member, I've also made it perfectly clear to Director Lu, not only that I'll be available to meet him anytime up to midnight on the 30th June 1997, and doubtless thereafter though with slightly less relevance to the problems of Hong Kong, and also that the Chief Secretary would be delighted to meet him. He met the Chief Secretary's predecessor on an informal occasion at, I think, Victoria House, and very nice too, and the Chief Secretary has made it plain that she would be delighted to meet Director Lu either formally or informally so as to introduce him to some of her senior colleagues in the Administration.

Now, we cannot be more courteous, more constructive, more open-handed than that. And I repeat what I said earlier, I know of no other part of the world where that wouldn't receive an equally courteous response.

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