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ON THE RECORD
RECORDED FROM TRANSMISSION BBC-1 DATE: 24.4.93
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JONATHAN DIMBLEBY: Welcome to On The Record which starts
today in Hong Kong where I will be interviewing the Governor, Chris Patten, at
a critical moment in relations between the Government of China and the
Government of this last significant British colony.
Here in Hong Kong Chris Patten's stock
has risen over the last few days almost as sharply as the Hang Seng Index.
After six months of chronic anxiety, tempered by acute alarm, the people of
this jittery colony are investing their hopes in the crucial talks between
Britain and China that opened on Thursday and which many of them believe will
settle the fate of Hong Kong for better or worse.
Can Chris Patten honour his commitment
to freedom and democracy here or will the talks inevitably founder as the two
sides fail to bridge the diplomatic chasm that now exists between them. I'll
be trying to find out from the man himself as Britain enters what is for the
Government, and for him personally, a most testing round of eyeball to eyeball
diplomacy and, to identify the obstacles ahead, Michael Gove now reports on the
devisive build up to this critical moment.
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DIMBLEBY: Governor, there's been a prolonged
atmosphere of crisis here. Now the talks are underway I want to explore with
you if I may the prospects of success and the consequences of failure.
When you came here, you came here with a
commitment to protect and enhance Hong Kong's freedoms - an objective which I
have to presume remains funamental to you?
CHRIS PATTEN: Yes, Hong Kong's way of life and Hong
Kong's prosperity and stability. I mentioned all those things.
DIMBLEBY: And freedom?
PATTEN: And freedom. Freedom is part of Hong
Kong's way of life and it's one of the reasons why Hong Kong's prosperous.
DIMBLEBY: And one of the reasons why your
proposals for democracy, for extending democracy here, are important to you?
PATTEN: Yes, I think there is a very close
relationship between a credible, not necessarily a totally democratic, but a
credible legislative council and the rule of law.
DIMBLEBY: But those proposals you yourself
described as modest. We know they provoked something, at least in public,
like apoplexy in the Chinese capital, which is why we have the tension at the
moment.
PATTEN: Alas yes.
DIMBLEBY: Now, we are on the verge of these talks,
but you were on the verge of putting your proposals before the legislators of
Hong Kong. It must be somewhat frustrating for you is it not, to now to have
those proposals back in the melting pot of talks and postponed from decision by
the people of Hong Kong.
PATTEN: I think it's a bit frustrating for
people in Hong Kong despite the fact that there is an overall enthusiasm for
getting talks going. The main frustration as far as we're concerned - as far
as I'm concerned and the British Government and maybe a large part of the
community - is that we weren't talking last October. I'm sorry that it took
until as it were until the eleventh hour for talks to get going, but better
late than never.
DIMBLEBY: But that's the Chinese responsibility?
PATTEN: Well, we've been prepared to talk since
last October.
DIMBLEBY: Is there any truth in the widespread
reports that the only reason why the talks are now taking place is because the
Foreign Office has been rather more assiduous in pursuing talks with the
Chinese than you yourself have been anxious to be?
PATTEN: No, we've been at one, completely at one
on the need for talks and I repeat that I'm only sorry that they didn't start
earlier.
DIMBLEBY: Did the Chinese give way?
PATTEN: I think it's more helpful to say that we
found ways round one or two rather unnecessary problems which had been created.
DIMBLEBY: That may be helpful. May I ask whether
you had to shift ground backwards to compromise in order to find your way into
finding their way round?
PATTEN: If you take the recent talks about talks
there's nothing in the basis of the talks that we've now started that we
couldn't have accepted at the beginning of March.
DIMBLEBY: There must be, given the background that
you've just identified, considerable doubts about the prospect for both
enhancing your democracy here and for a successful outcome of the talks?
PATTEN: Well, I think that it's perhaps unfair
to talk about the argument in terms of enhancing democracy. There's already an
agreed path towards a more democratic legislative council. The nub of the
argument is whether the arrangements that in broad terms we've agreed to are
going to be conducted in a way which is fair and credible, whether the limited
amount of democracy that we'll have in Hong Kong will be a credible...
DIMBLEBY: But your proposals were designed to
enhance democracy. They increase the number of people who have a vote.
PATTEN My proposals were designed to ensure
that we had fair elections.
DIMBLEBY: Now, on the table in these negotiations,
designed to discuss how you get to that point, your proposals are going to have
to be on the table. I want to establish the framework in which these talks are
going to take place. Those proposals presumably will have to be on the table.
PATTEN: Well, they're.. the proposals we've put
forward, they've been debated in the legislative council reasonably
enthusiastically on a couple of occasions. They continue to command very
considerable public support in Hong Kong and so of course they're there.
DIMBLEBY: And if they're not discussed thoroughly
and if the Chinese aren't happy to listen to them being enthusiastically
promoted, those talks will get nowhere fast?
PATTEN: Well, what I hope those talks will do is
to encourage Chinese officials to put forward proposals. I gather from what's
been said in the last few months the Chinese officials aren't excessively keen
on the proposals I put forward. Indeed I know that from the talks I had in
Peking last Autumn, but I think we need to move on in a businesslike and
constructive way to consider any Chinese alternatives.
DIMBLEBY: Does that mean that you are prepared in
the process of being constructive to modify, to compromise, to water down, your
proposals?
PATTEN: Well, I don't think I want to use words
like water down, but since I put forward these ideas as proposals last October
rather than as a fait accompli it follows that if we think there are better
ways of securing fair elections in 1994 and 1995 we'll accept them.
DIMBLEBY: But it's inconceivable that the Chinese
would think that better ways would include increasing the scale of democracy.
PATTEN: Well, there are elements which haven't
been discussed until recently, at least not in the sort of detail that one
might like, which I think the community is increasingly interested in,and I
think they're elements which will form part of the discussions, for example,
what exactly is meant by the so-called through train? How exactly it's going
to be possible not just to have arrangements which continue through 1997, but
also legislators who were elected in 1995 and continue through 1997.
DIMBLEBY: Well, I want to pursue that in just a
second, but if you can get something along those lines which we'll come to, are
you then prepared to make the structure of your proposals effectively weaker,
so that the franchise is not, for instance, so extensive, that not so many
people have quite such a vote?
PATTEN: Well, I'll tell you what I'm not
prepared to do which is to negotiate about the proposals on television,
seductive as the prospect may be.
DIMBLEBY: I'm sure it is very seductive to
negotiate on television....
PATTEN: What I will say is that we've gone into
these discussions, we've gone into these negotiations constructively, in a
positive spirit as diplomats might put it.
DIMBLEBY: Which means a spirit of give and take
and therefore of compromise.
PATTEN: Which means that if you want to have an
acceptable solution at the end of the day you do need to have a bit of give and
take, but give and take has to be on both sides.
DIMBLEBY: Right, now, let's come to what might be
the give on their side then, which is what you referred to as the through
train. You would not be happy to do a deal unless you were convinced, am I
right, that anyone elected in 1995 while Britain still administers the colony
should be able to be confident that they will still be there at the next
elections in 1999 when China is the sovereign power?
PATTEN: I think the community would scratch its
head and say "What's the point of us having arrangements which allegedly
converge with the basic law after 1997 if even when people are elected under
those arrangements they can be chucked out in 1997. The whole idea of a
through train pre-supposes that you get a ticket at one end and, provided you
meet the terms of the ticket, you can travel through to the destination at the
other. It's a pretty rum through train which has people getting on half-way
along the journey and turfing you off.
DIMBLEBY: But there are well known figures here,
the Martin Lees of Hong Kong, who are regarded with great anathema by Peking.
Are you saying that you would not happily, knowingly, do a deal of a kind which
would have Martin Lee - presuming he were very probably going to be elected in
'95 - turfed off the train in '97?
PATTEN: Well, I think the community, and it
comes out in all the polls not very surprisingly, I think the community would
scratch its head a bit about an agreement which was entirely about
institutional arrangements and didn't take account of legislators.
DIMBLEBY: So you want that commitment from the
Chinese unequivocally?
PATTEN: Well, not just me wanting it, and I
notice that one of the.. I think it's a slightly pejorative expression, but a
pro-Peking party in Hong Kong this week, the Democratic Alliance for the
betterment of Hong Kong, expressed its anxieties about the importance of
clarifying exactly what the through train would mean.
DIMBLEBY: But if they clarify it and they say this
"The through train means that come 1997 in our interpretation of the basic law
we apply a loyalty test and if we don't judge the politicians to be loyal, then
sorry they get off the train".
PATTEN: Well, I don't think you can have a
subjective loyalty test which is going to be applied at some time in the future
and expect that to provide you with the clarity which is I think required.
DIMBLEBY: So for you this is a core issue, to be
confident that when you come back if you get a deal, you can say to the people
of Hong Kong, "I believe, I have no reason not to believe, that the Chinese now
are committed to allowing anyone elected in '95 to be there four years on"?
PATTEN: I strongly suspect that people in Hong
Kong want a real through train.
DIMBLEBY: And because of that you are, you are,
it's your bottom line as well on that?
PATTEN: Yes, I think that they are actually much
keener on the through train concept than on some of the other things that we'll
be arguing about and I think that is going to be the really difficult question
both for Chinese officials and for me and for British Government officials to
answer after these talks. What sort of clarity now is there about not just the
legislative... not just the electoral process but about electors... about
legislators themselves.
DIMBLEBY: That's very clear. Is it also
unequivocal that the Chinese must understand that any deal - if you get a
deal - will be subject to approval by the legislators in Hong Kong before it
means anything?
PATTEN: Yes, the Chinese officials of course
argue and I understand the point, that talks are between the sovereign powers,
between the present sovereign and the future sovereign. They also understand
that under the Royal instructions, the letters patent and so on, that the
legislative council has the responsibility for legislating. They recognised
that before 1997, just as the basic law recognises it after 1997. I can't
appear in front of the legislative council and say, "Here are arrangements for
1994 and 1995, they will exist on my fiat, I have to legislate in order to
provide the arrangements and in order to get the legitimacy from the community.
DIMBLEBY: And that would require a majority of the
politicians in the legislative council?
PATTEN: Of course.
DIMBLEBY: And if they want to modify they are
entitled under your understanding of their powers, to modify?
PATTEN: But then we would have to be in a
position in which we went back to China and explained that. I think ...
DIMBLEBY: So China now has a veto over what is
over possible in Legco?
PATTEN: No, what I was saying was that if the
legislative council modified arrangements that we'd agreed with China, we
would, in the first instance, have to go back to China if we thought that was
the right thing to do. There is - let me explain what I mean by that
conditional sentence. The legislative council can't do anything which would
oblige us to contravene international agreements we've reached, for example the
joint declaration, or for example our commitments at the UN on civil liberties,
so there are some limits to what the legislative council can do, but I think
it's recognised on all sides that the legislative council have to legislate.
DIMBLEBY: But if for instance, the legislative
council were to say, "Well, we heard what happened up in Peking, we didn't
particularly care for it, we very much liked Governor, your original
proposals". They could say - which you were going to put at Legco in any
case - they could say "We're going to go for them". Do you have to go back to
China then?
PATTEN: Well, I think it is extremely unlikely
that we would reach an agreement which we didn't believe the legislative
council would accept, so I'm rather reluctant to be lured down lots of
hypothetical boulevards.
DIMBLEBY: Okay. The other aspect of negotiations
with China is in the past their longevity. In this case you're against the
clock - you've got a deadline. Have you told the Chinese that you've got a
deadline?
PATTEN: I think if one talks about deadlines
when you're starting to negotiate they have a rather unfortunate effect of
blowing up. I don't like talking about deadlines because they do sound a bit
like ultimatums, but the position is quite simply this. We do need to have in
place, in time, arrangements for 1994 and '95. That requires a lot of
administrative work, it also requires legislation, so the calendar dictates a
certain pace to these negotiations. Now, I don't want to do or say anything
which makes it more difficult for those negotiations to succeed. If the
negotiations are going well, then one will want to give them as much time as is
required.
DIMBLEBY: But you could not conceivably, given
what you've said about preparing legislation, go into next year on these
negotiations, could you, without running into terrible trouble.
PATTEN: It would create some problems if we were
going on that long, and I think the community might also be wondering whether
we shouldn't have settled things by then.
DIMBLEBY: The community has been given the
impression that July is the preferred deadline.
PATTEN: Well, I think that it's fair to say that
the sooner the better, but I don't really want to start ringing dates in the
calendar, because I repeat, I think it then makes it much more difficult for
our negotiators.
DIMBLEBY: But we would not be wrong to suppose
that if it gets beyond October you're into serious trouble.
PATTEN: I think it starts to get very difficult
for the district elections in particular, which are to be held next year,
because candidates for those elections would really want to be starting to get
to know their constituencies in the Autumn of this year, so it would create
considerable problems for the district elections.
DIMBLEBY: Although the... well, let's not pursue
that any further, because obviously for '95 the same must apply, the nearer it
gets to '95 the same difficulties.
Do you have the authority from the Prime
Minister effectively to say, under the circumstances in which the Chinese might
say, "We're enjoying these talks, let's continue them, they might - you're
listening to our principles, we're listening to your views, but we want to go
on talking". Do you have the delegated authority to say "I'm sorry, time's up
because we've got to get these proposals - whatever they're going to be - into
the legislative council"?
PATTEN: I think whether the talks are going very
well, or whether they're going less well, the Prime Minister and the Foreign
Secretary will take some notice of my views on the process, but obviously the
final responsibility is with the Prime Minister and the Cabinet.
DIMBLEBY: Just to see where we've got to so far.
You're going to discuss your proposals, but you're prepared to listen to what
you regard as potentially better proposals. You believe that the through
train, on which you've got a very clear strong position, is of the utmost
importance and you're not going to compromise very much on that front. Legco
has the final say although you don't expect to put anything to them which you
don't think they'll accept and there is a time limit which is coming up
rapidly. Now that's not the bottom line, but it's a pretty clear outline of
where Britain is negotiating from. What makes you think there is a cat in
hell's chance of the Chinese, who've been on at you as if you were the devil
incarnate precisely for the kinds of things that you believe in and for what
you've been saying, are going to remotely do a deal with you?
PATTEN: I think it's hugely in our joint
interest to have a successful outcome to these negotiations, hugely. It
matters for Hong Kong, it matters for China, it matters for Britain, it matters
that we're able to conduct the next four years as competently and decently as
possible and it matters that after that Hong Kong's way of life is preserved.
DIMBLEBY: You have to presume then that the
Chinese have changed their view from the one which they have uttered with a
great passion and conviction over the last six months in which they have
rejected your proposals, where the through train issue is one they're not
prepared to discuss because it's all written in tablets of stone, what makes
you think they've changed?
PATTEN: I think that Chinese officials recognise
their own interest and recognise the important role which Hong Kong can play
and will play in the further successful development of China.
DIMBLEBY: You see, your critics, the Sinologists
in London, former civil servants, some politicians, politicians in the business
community here who are severely critical of you, say Patten lives, albeit it
with a good heart, in cloud cuckoo land when it comes to the Chinese.
PATTEN: Well there are some of those people who
find it difficult to accept that in diplomacy or negotiations you should ever
have a bottom line, certainly that you should ever stand on a bottom line.
There are also others who seem to have some difficulty in recognising the
relationship between the rule of law and Hong Kong's success.
DIMBLEBY: If the critics are right - indeed,
conceivably if the critcs are not right - the talks might... would collapse.
Under those circumstances, you would presumably then put before Legco, the
legislative council, the proposals which are already yours and printed.
PATTEN: I don't want to contemplate failure, I
don't think that it's very sensible to set out on difficult negotiations by
assuming that things are going to go wrong, but if we were unable to reach
agreement with China, we're still in a position in which we have the
responsibility for putting forward proposals for the '94 and '95 elections.
It's not a problem that we've imagined or dreamt up - those arrangements
haven't been agreed.
DIMBLEBY: Under those circumstances, which you say
you don't want to contemplate, none the less any serious politician has to
contemplate that kind of worst case when you go into negotiations, you would
end up with a very grim prospect indeed - talks broken down, the Chinese
denouncing you even more passionately if possible than they have done hitherto,
setting up probably their alternative government, the so-called second stove or
second kitchen, in an atmosphere poisoned by alarm and pessimism.
PATTEN: Well you've sketched out there a pretty
cheerful prospect, I don't actually think that I necessarily share that view.
If at the end of, I hope sincere negotiations, we weren't able to reach an
agreement, I hope we could at least agree to disagree and get on with the other
things in life which are important. Chinese officials do say from time to time
that there's no relationship between economics and politics. I think it would
be nice to have conclusive evidence of that.
DIMBLEBY: In respect of the talks at this moment
do you count yourself optimistic, pessimistic?
PATTEN: Oh, I'm always an optimist, but a
realist as well.
DIMBLEBY: Governor Chris Patten, thank you very
much.
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