XN000022-1996-04-11 — Page 4

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Chris Patten: We have received a series of requests from the Secretary of the I Preparatory Committee. We will be responding to those requests reasonably soon. do not think there is any pressure on us to do so, as it were, today. We have been waiting for the lists since last October and we only received it a week or ten days ago and we think it requires serious attention. I have made it abundantly plain - and there should be no doubt about this that we can do absolutely nothing to compromise the credibility and legitimacy of the governing institutions of Hong Kong. We do not want to do anything which in any way corrodes the integrity or morale of our civil service and we certainly will not do anything which undermines the position of our freely elected Legislative Council, threats to demolish which were described by the British Foreign Secretary as being 'unjustifiable and reprehensible'.

Question: Are you suggesting that you are as wet as Tony Blair and how would you mark yourself in relationship to Mr Blair?

Chris Patten: I am saying that I'm the same as I always was, but as I have always have in the past learned from experience, so I have during my period as Governor of Hong Kong. As you know, Tony, that makes me a balanced, reasonably, moderate, sensible, all-embracing, father of three daughters, you know the rest!

Where does that put me in relation to Mr Blair? I am a Tory and Mr Blair is, I understand, Leader of the Labour Party. It is for Mr Blair to describe his socialism in its modern dress, but I am not new Labour, I am old Tory.

Question: You seem to be indicating in your answers to John a few moments ago that you would perhaps be in favour of internationalising issues should things go wrong. There have been suggestions that there might be some move towards getting some kind of international legal judgment if China should rip up the Joint Declaration after the handover. What are your own views on that? Do you think it could be effective?

Chris Patten: I think it's an interesting question, but it would be injudicious to answer what one would do in circumstances of China, which we hope won't happen, behaving badly. It is still our objective to encourage China to recognise the importance of abiding by the letter and the spirit of the Joint Declaration. What happens if that does not happen? It would be unfair to China and unwise of me to speculate about that.

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But there is one aspect of the question - and I don't mean to be critical with which I don't quite agree, and that is the suggestion that there is something called The Hong Kong question will be an internationalising the Hong Kong issue. international issue in the sense that Hong Kong is one of the greatest cities in the world and the way it is treated after the transfer of sovereignty will inevitably be a matter of great concern to the region and to the world. People wili recognise of course that, after 1997, China is sovereign, but they will also, I am sure and as I have said before, regard the way that Beijing handles Hong Kong as being a litmus test for the way China is going to behave on all sorts of other issues.