XN000022-1996-04-11 — Page 8

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But let me just say one thing. Every election campaign I've ever been involved in, I've been told, 'it's going to be, was, the dirtiest ever'. We have pretty clean election campaigns in this country and they involve robust exchanges of other people's points of view and philosophies and views on the world. I don't think anybody, whether Conservative or dare I say it, old Labour or new Labour, or Liberal Democrats, Nationalists, whatever, should get too worried about the ordinary cut and thrust of political debate. All of us have had experience of it. I have had experience of it myself.

Question: I know you don't want to get into hypothetical questions about Chinese breach of the Joint Declaration, but there is one announcement of an intending breach which is the setting up of a political legislature in Hong Kong which would start operating six months before the handover. That is clearly a breach of the Declaration. What courses of action would be open to you and the British Government? Is there anything in fact that you could do about it?

Chris Patten: We have it from one or two Chinese sources, though not officially, that the provisional Legislative Council which is threatened would be set up before 30 June 1997. But I have to say that that has not been stated by any, I think, Chinese official organs. I think it is a smoke signal from deep in the bush, but I don't think any of us knows whether it represents a real intention. The provisional Legislative Council before the middle of June 1997 is, to be frank, China's problem, and it would have no status in Hong Kong and explaining it away would be a matter for Chinese officials. The worry is that it would do damage to Hong Kong and damage people's confidence in the future of Hong Kong, confidence in Hong Kong and confidence outside Hong Kong. What we do if it happens falls into that unhappy category of the hypothetical, which I mentioned earlier.

The only thing I want to add is this. I do not think that a British Prime Minister and a British Foreign Secretary could have made it clearer than Mr Major and Mr Rifkind have, that Britian's interest in and commitment to Hong Kong does not end on 30 June 1997. We have, among other things, a clear moral commitment which goes well beyond 30 June 1997, and as signatories to a treaty which guarantees Hong Kong for 50 years afterwards, we have a treaty obligation to Hong Kong as well. I repeat that I don't think those matters could have been put more clearly by the Prime Minister and the Foreign Minister.

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