XN000022-1996-10-02 — Page 18

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We also, however, hope that on that issue Chinese officials will think again. We recall that at the meeting which Mr Rifkind had with Mr Qian Qichen in the Hague in April, as we have made clear before, Mr Qian Qichen said that a provisional legislature wouldn't assume its functions before July 1, 1997, that there could only be one Legislative Council, one Governor, one Privy Council before July 1, 1997. So we still very much hope that the Chinese officials and others will abide by what Mr Qian said in the Hague. And I wouldn't want to say anything at this point which suggested that Chinese officials weren't going to do so.

I add this point which I made, I think to Mr Gilley, earlier. We have made it abundantly, prosaically, legally clear to Chinese officials why no provisional legislature is required before 30 June next year. We couldn't be clearer. We have also pointed out that if this body starts behaving like a legislature, if it starts considering appointments, if it starts considering laws, those appointments and those laws are, under the Basic Law, going to be vulnerable to legal challenge after July 1, 1997.

It is not a sort of make-up piece of rhetoric. You only have to ask some of the Legislators, particularly the Legislators who are lawyers - you only have to ask some of the lawyers who aren't Legislators in Hong Kong - about that and they will tell you. Now that is not me being destabilising, it is not me being provocative, it is my description of a situation which will exist if Chinese officials behave in a way which is not sensible.

The second question is what is the status of a provisional legislature appointed after July 1, 1997 in relation to Joint Declaration 49. And on that, before the event I will only repeat that if we were having a legal argument it would be on the grounds that Chinese officials would presumably be arguing that by election they meant election by 400 people. Now I don't think anybody believes that except, perhaps, a distinguished former diplomat. But I don't think anybody else believes that to be the

case.

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I don't want, attractive as it is to headline writers, to disappear too far down illegal cul-de-sacs on all this, because I would like Chinese officials, both in the short and long term, to think again about these matters. And I repeat, this is not the British Government or the Governor being provocative, this is responding to a situation which some people have casually and recklessly put on the road as though there weren't very difficult and damaging consequences.

Question: Governor, what's the difference between the smooth transition and the successful transition and might you recognise that a successful transition is more important and necessary?