TNAG-1891-FCO40-2684-Visits-by-Sir-Geoffrey-Howe-and-by-Douglas-Hurd--Secretaries-1989 — Page 36

TRANSCRIPT A PORBIGE SBC

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HONG KONG

PC

4 JULY 1989

5

(QUESTIONS AND ARSVBRS)

QUESTION (Simon Macklin, South China Morning Post):

Sir Geoffrey, while this visit may have been of value to you,

what value do you think it has been to the people of Hong Kong since

you have been able to say so little?

POREIGN SECRETARY:

All those who have claimed to speak for the people of Hong

Kong, including some of those most anxious about the future, have

expressed themselves very grateful for my visit here precisely

because it has given them the plainest possible opportunity to

express to me their anxieties and their constructive proposals for

the future. And I have no doubt that had I not come at a time of

such critical importance for Hong Kong that the South China Morning

Poet would not have been diffident in criticising me for failing to

turn up.

I have come here because I want to hear and meet people on

the spot, to assess for myself and also to make certain very clear

statements of the kind that I have made in the statement that I have

just givan.