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MR CHRIS PATTEN

dow

INT

Ja

DAVID FROST

J

LONDON

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4 APRIL 1993

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Foreign Secretary to take this job on for five years and I intend

to see it out.

INTERVIEWER:

What reason do the Chinese have not to give you a bad time, what

do they lose by giving you this horrendous time?

MR PATTEN;

I think it is curious if they go on giving the impression that they do not really believe in the Joint Declaration, in the treaty that they signed up to. We could sit down and talk, and I would like us to sit down and talk about the arrangements for the elections. I think we could find, or should be able to find, arrangements which are mutually satisfactory, which please people in Hong Kong and which are satisfactory for the future sovereign as well as the present sovereign power. What I do not want to do is to go further than people in Hong Kong are prepared to go but I do not want to go less far either.

INTERVIEWER:

There is a line in the papers today that the perfect compromise in the relationship with China will be that you will not have to go back and tone down your plans on your own but that LEGCO will castrate the Patten plan and everything will be fine and dandy.