18-MAR-1993 11:44
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Programme
: THE WORLD TONIGHT
Station
:
BBC RADIO 4
Dete
:
17.03.93
Time
:
22:08
BROADCAST REPORT
We're not supporting Chris Patten, we're supporting the people of Hong Kong in this. So Chris
Patten will know, indeed has gone, bent over backwards to, in his terms, go the last mile, and I'm
sure that he'd be prepared to do so again in order to resolve this matter. But as he rightly says, the
fact that you are flexible and want to maintain dialogue, and do not involve yourself in the trading
of insults, does not mean to say that you should not stand by your basic principles.
ALEXANDER MCLEOD:
But there's no sign of the Chinese blinking first.
PADDY ASHDOWN MP:
No. We're playing a long game. And of course, the Chinese, and one understands why with their
fear of the spread of democracy in China, they've largely liberalised their economy and there's a
desperate fear in Peking that Hong Kong will act as a centre of infection of democracy, following
on the liberalisation of economics in China, so one understands that. I think that wiser councils will
prevail. The main thing that we do not want to do is to act in such a way as to elevate this to a
more heated plane than it already is and always to keep the door open for negotiation and for a
solution that allows people to come out of this rather tense and very difficult (word unclear),
extremely turbulent over the next months and perhaps even years, but to come out of this with
Hong Kong's prosperity and stability assured but with relative saviour of face on all sides.
ALEXANDER MCLEOD:
Paddy Ashdown.
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