Q.
A
But briefly, Mr Howell. Super and fascinating if you are a politician. If you are a businessman look at the Hong Kong stock exchange, share prices are falling, businesses getting the
jitters.
Well, they are very proud of the jitters. This won't be the first or last time between now and 1997 but there remains a very
strong case which I think Chris Patten is right to proceed with for very modest, local government reforms to strengthen their electoral system and I think in the end the Chinese, although they hate recognising this will see that destabilising and smashing up Hong Kong is far too high a price to pay for the whole of China's hopes for the future as they join the modern
world.
Mr Robert Adley
Q
A
Mr Adley do you think that Chris Patten or the British Government because presumably he is acting under their
instructions is doing the right thing or should we have played a
longer waiting game, been a little more cautious with Peking?
I am frankly very worried about what's going on. Chris Patten has clearly broken the agreement. I don't think anybody who is
seriously involved and has been for donkeys years over Hong Kong looking back to the 1984 Agreement, if you talk to the diplomats privately, who have been involved with these negotiations, he has broken the agreement and as David Howell has just said, democracy is coming to Hong Kong. It's never had democracy and nor has China. But what Chris Patten is doing is
creating tremendous uncertainty in his gambling with Hong Kong's future stability really for the sake of what is virtually a bargaining point.
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