XN000022-1995-11-16 — Page 8

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Governor: Well, it is possible for the Joint Declaration to be breached. The New China News Agency relentlessly argues, with no justification whatsoever in fact, as one sees from squads of international lawyers who have appeared in front of the Select Committee on Foreign Affairs of the House of Commons, that having fair elections in Hong Kong is a breach of the Joint Declaration. Whereas having fair elections in Hong Kong is a clear implementation of the Joint Declaration. But it is possible for either party to be in breach of the Joint Declaration and of other international treaties. But nobody who signs an international treaty should wish to breach it. If you breach an international treaty with another sovereign power, then it stands to reason that that sovereign power would wish to take up the matter, not least in the United Nations where the international treaty is lodged.

Mr Bruce Liu (in Chinese): Governor, whether it be at formal or informal forums, we have a lot of high ranking officials meeting Chinese officials Members of this

Council or other members of the community - and they talk about transitional issues, Vietnamese migrant issues, and human rights. Now, do you have internal instructions and directives for your high officials so that when they quote certain things that have been said they can adhere to certain guidelines? Quote what the Chinese authorities have said that is then they will have certain guidelines?

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Governor: There is perhaps an inwardness in that question which I don't quite follow. But it is of course true that when discussing human rights or other matters bilaterally with Chinese officials, whether in the Joint Liaison Group or in other channels - and there are, as the honourable member makes clear, other channels that Hong Kong Government officials or British Government officials would have speaking notes and briefings which reflected both the consistent positions of the Hong Kong and British Governments, and which, I am sure, took account of some of the arguments which they thought officials on the other side of the table would put to them. But perhaps I am being very dense and missing out on a point.

I don't think, if I can add the point, that diplomacy is entirely like political debate. Sometimes it is more restrained, sometimes I think it is less restrained. In political debate you very often note, for example, how people have spoken and how people have voted on an issue in the past. On the issue, for example, of the Bill of Rights, that might be an appropriate way of conducting the argument. But normally, a dialogue between diplomats doesn't necessarily pursue up and down the highways and byways what other people have said on previous occasions.

Mr Fred Li (in Chinese): Mr President, I have a question not related to human rights.