XN000022-1996-05-22 — Page 4

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Question: What's your response to the MFN issue ...?

Governor: As you know, I went to the United States to campaign vigorously for unconditional renewal of MFN. I was pleased when I was there to have the assurance of both the President and Senator Dole that they themselves would be in favour of unconditional renewal. But obviously the action now moves to the Senate and the House of Representatives where the argument may be rather more, rather tougher and we can't yet relax. Obviously American politicians look very hard at what's happening in China and sometimes other events affect their attitude on this issue. But they know very well that we in Hong Kong continue to believe passionately in free trade and they know very well that I and Martin Lee argued very vigorously for Hong Kong and Hong Kong's interest, pointing out how much we would be damaged at a sensitive moment in our transition to Chinese sovereignty by any disruption to trade between our two largest trading partners. So it's fairly early days in this annual argument, but I hope the issue will be settled in a sensible way before the end of the summer,

Question: Are you surprised at the way the business groups react to the interview that you had with Newsweek?

Governor: I'm surprised at the way that business groups have reacted to things that I didn't say. I'm surprised to discover that articles have been written and things have been said without people ever reading the Newsweek article or the press that I received in the United States and Canada when I was there, which was uniformly extremely positive. I'd rather enjoy it, to tell you the truth. I'm also surprised at the extent to which one or two business leaders now seem happy to get involved in political issues, and obviously it means now the community will be looking to them for views on issues like human rights protection, the independence of the judiciary, the future of the civil service. I hope that some of these business leaders who've been making their views clear so liberally in the last few days will be speaking up for Hong Kong over the next year because it's important that some people speak up for Hong Kong. I'll continue to do so in Hong Kong and outside Hong Kong. Okay. Thank you very much.

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