XN000022-1996-11-28 — Page 2

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Japan gives assurance on SAR Passport

The Prime Minister of Japan, Hon Ryutaro Hashimoto, assured the Governor, the Rt Hon Christopher Patten, today (Thursday) in Tokyo that Japan will treat the SAR Passport differently from the Passport of the People's Republic of China.

Speaking to the press after meetings with Mr Hashimoto and the Foreign Minister of Japan, Hon Yukihiko Ikeda, Mr Patten said Japan's Foreign Ministry and Justice Ministry were looking at the moment at precisely how the SAR Passport should be treated.

Mr Patten said that he was pressing that it should be treated at least as well as the BNO or BDTC Passport.

Under the British Passport at the moment, people could have multiple entry to Japan for up to a year. "So obviously, we would like the SAR Passport after 1997 to be treated like the BDTC, BNO, with people being able to come and go for a year or so," the Governor said.

"It is an important issue and we think that we can justify that argument because unlike the Certificate of Identity, the SAR Passport is a proper national travel document and of course it guarantees the returnability to Hong Kong of anybody who actually breaches the rules," he added.

Mr Patten said there were discussions going on between the Foreign Ministry and the Justice Ministry and he was sure that it was the case that Japanese officials were well down the road towards an announcement and a solution.

"So I would not expect it to be very long delayed and certainly, Japanese officials were under no doubt that the sooner we can get a decision the better because it is one of those important small building blocks I think in people's confidence in Hong Kong," he said.

Earlier in the day, the Governor told a gathering of Japanese businessmen that Hong Kong would continue to thrive provided it retained its infrastructure of good government and what American political scientists called civil society, a first-class civil service, an independent Judiciary, a free and inquisitive media, the continued development of political accountability and representative institutions, so that the Government could continue to govern Hong Kong with the grain of public opinion rather than against it.