namely that it will look all right here. And it certainly will look all right. We will be standing up to the Chinese; we won't be giving way to them; we will be tough.
But Mr Chairman, I would suggest that our only criteria here is what is good for Hong Kong. If we do our best for Hong Kong in very difficult circumstances, then there is nothing to fear. If, on the other hand, we pursue simply short term gratifications for Britain, follow a policy which makes us feel good and look good for a while, and leaves the rest to Hong Kong and leaves Hong Kong to pick up the bill, then I do not think that is a defensible policy.
I think we have only one course, Chairman.
It is a very unpalatable one, given the circumstances, which we have helped partly to create ourselves, but I have no doubt that this is the right course in the present circumstances.
Chairman: Arising from that we have three more questions in about six minutes, although we have covered a good deal of the ideas we wanted to discuss with you, Sir Percy.
Mr David Harris:
Putting aside the present controversy, although I know one cannot do that, is Sir Percy confident if this had not arisen, as he has mentioned Martin Lee, that someone like Martin Lee would be left on the through-train by the Chinese, and that he would have remained in any case a member of the new Assembly?
at
Chairman: I cannot say, Mr Harris, on that. I think this was always going to be difficult in the best of circumstances, and I would not like to suggest that agreeing with the Chinese on these matters would produce an ideal world; it never does. There will always be difficulties. The Chinese have questions about Mr Lee and possibly other members of LegCo least they seem to have said so. I do not myself think that we can ourselves guarantee their future in Hong Kong after 1997, under any circumstances. We should certainly try to do so; we should make sure that they are in no way discriminated against during our period of control, and we should do our best for them after. But it is unrealistic to think that we can give them a
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