XN000022-1996-06-27 — Page 25

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Concluding my US tour, I visited Washington DC where I held meetings with senior officials of the US Administration including Secretary of State, Warren Christopher, Secretary for the Treasury, Robert Rubin and the National Security Adviser, Anthony Lake. I also met with key members of both the House and the Senate including the Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, William Roth, Chairman of the House Asia and Pacific Subcommittee, Doug Bereuter and the newly elected Senate Majority Leader, Trent Lott. My purpose was to emphasise the importance to Hong Kong of unconditional MFN renewal for China, to discuss the prospects of permanent MFN, to stress our commitment to the protection of intellectual property rights and to explain how we were preparing for the transition and some of the challenges ahead.

Over a period of three weeks, I delivered 26 speeches and held numerous meetings with US government officials, local government leaders, politicians, influential members of think tanks, chambers of commerce, business associations and community organisations which have a particular interest in Hong Kong. On the media side, I held six press conferences, and gave eight media interviews and met with seven editorial boards. We also published a special Hong Kong supplement in each of the three cities covered by the promotion. All our promotion events received extensive coverage in the media and were very well attended.

The visit was well worthwhile and I believe met all of the objectives which I referred to earlier. The active participation of members from both the public and private sectors in the promotion enabled us to make a far greater impact on our American audiences than either party could achieve on its own. Together we were able to underline Hong Kong's strategic role in the Asia Pacific region, our economic strength and generally to instil confidence in continued investments in Hong Kong after 1997.

It is clear that there is continuing strong interest in Hong Kong and considerable support for everything that we are doing to secure our future. I stressed the USA's increasing stakes in Hong Kong and therefore the importance to the US of a smooth transition. All my contacts made it clear that they look forward to full and faithful implementation of the Joint Declaration and Basic Law. Inevitably I was asked to respond to specific concerns over the transition, including the threat of a provisional legislature, protection of human rights, press freedom, etc. I dealt frankly with these concerns. At the same time I drew attention to how much had been achieved in the past twelve years since the signing of the Joint Declaration to turn the promises of a "high degree of autonomy" and " Hong Kong people ruling Hong Kong" into a reality. On the whole, I was able to project a reasonably positive picture of Hong Kong's future whilst acknowledging that there were still difficulties which remain to be resolved to ensure that the key elements of Hong Kong's success remain intact after 1997.

End