LORD CAITHNESS' INTERVIEW WITH VIVIAN TSE, HONG KONG STANDARD,
9 JULY 1991
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Q: The thing is mainly about the airport and also the boat
people issue. As we know last week China and the United
Kingdom made an agreement on the arrangement for a airport in Hong Kong. So first of all I will follow up what Hong Kong Governor, Wilson, mentioned in a press conference last week about the question of joint rule. denied there is any implication of joint rule in the agreement but as according to, as you may know a lot of British media and also local media in Hong Kong, they criticised agreement saying that actually it gives the Chinese Government an administrative power over the Hong Kong issue, when they should have no power over the Hong Kong issue at all. So I just want to get your comments on the comments from the media, do you think their comments are justified?
A:
Well, I think the two points that you want to raise, the airport and the boat people are two of the most important issues facing Hong Kong at the moment and there has been an incredible amount of work on both sides on both the Hong Kong Government's side and the British side, to try and resolve these two difficult problems. Let us deal with the airport first, which is the one that you raised just now. The considered press over here, in fact received the announcement of the Memorandum of Understanding, the statement that both the Secretary of State, Douglas Hurd, and I gave in Parliament, they received it well. Of course there were some who were going to criticise it, that was inevitable, but the serious considered press by and large gave it a very warm reception. They thought it was the right Memorandum to have reached, it was the right agreement to have reached, and if you look more widely at what people in Hong Kong have been saying, around the world
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