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Following is the transcript (English only) of a question-and-answer session by the Chief Executive, Mr Donald Tsang, at a luncheon at the Foreign Correspondents' Club today (August 24):
Question: About Disney. Are you aware that Disney will not be using the best technology for lowest noise and air pollution for their nightly fireworks? Hong Kong, the Government as a key investor in the project, should you not exercise your leadership to make sure that we operate Disney at the highest environmental standards? Will you do something about it this afternoon?
Chief Executive: We have already done what we can in the sense that the technology being used, as I understand it, would comply with the Hong Kong legislation or the environmental rules that we have established for protecting the environment of Hong Kong. They have complied with it and they have passed the test and I am satisfied with those tests.
Question: Can I ask you a question with some trepidation because you have been asked this so many times, but it may be a bit rude of me to say so but we have never really had an answer from you. Of course it's a question about constitutional reform. You have given a very clear deadline of when it can't happen, ie 2007 or 2008. So could you, perhaps on this occasion, rather than just saying in the future, we're making progress, give some kind of timeframe under which universal suffrage will be introduced?
Chief Executive: We cannot , we simply cannot. Because it's not something that can be dictated by a government like ourselves. It is something which must be worked up by the people here together with the National People's Congress in Beijing. It must be a co-operative effort. It cannot be something which is mandated by the Hong Kong SAR Government. We will do our very best to work within the political realities that we are facing to ensure that we step forward as much as possible closer to the final destination of universal suffrage. But in so doing I think it would be wrong for us to mandate here a date which might not be acceptable by the people here in Hong Kong or acceptable by the National People's Congress and Standing Committee. So, and that date must be established on the basis of mutual trust and that this is feasible politically and will engender a long-term prosperity and stability of Hong Kong. So I am not heading up the task force at the moment but I do see enormous difficulty at this stage to mandate a date, particularly one unilaterally by the SAR Government.
Question: In the wake of SARS there was a lot of talk about how Hong Kong and the Mainland had to do a better job co-operating, sharing information about public health threats. Last week in Legco, health officials in your government were telling lawmakers that after officials in Shenzhen started this massive recall of pork, it took them five days to give a formal explanation of why they were recalling this pork. Can you give us your assessment on how the co-operation has been going between Hong Kong and the Mainland on health issues? If you could rank it on a scale of 1 to 10 with 10 being excellent and 1 being...
Chief Executive: Well I won't rate it this way because the rating is done by you and not by me. What I can say with hands on heart and with great honesty is that the communications are getting better by the day. We learnt from the SARS epidemic and established a very good rapport and communications on reporting of diseases and epidemic-type diseases. On the question of food, we have established a new channel of communication now endorsed by Beijing. This is quite an achievement. We look at all these events. We do our very best to make use of these events to improve the communications system. There is no end to this. There is always room for improvement and as a government here in Hong Kong I want to make use of these opportunities to improve on the existing communications network. And so the experience we had over the difficulty with fish and eels now, means that we now have a much better information sharing system not only with the central authority and also with the provincial authorities in Guangdong and Shenzhen. In a way it was sad that we had to learn through these episodes but that is what life is all about. We have to work as hard as we can to seize these opportunities to improve on communications with various provincial authorities. China is a big country. There are developed and undeveloped parts of the country. We must be able to work and live peacefully with them and I think we are doing that. We are gaining a lot of co-operation. We are now producing much better systems but I am far from saying they are perfect. We have to work a lot harder each day and every time we have unfortunate incidents of this kind.
Question: You are forever denying collusion between government and big business notwithstanding lack of competition policy and so on. Could you explain why it is you continue to allow senior civil servants to retire at 60 or less and almost immediately take up senior positions with the very large property and other conglomerates which deal all the time with government departments and which require permissions and property rights and so forth? I would cite the example of your very own brother who went from chief of police on a very handsome pension to working for New World Development group which is engaged constantly in negotiations with the Government on all kinds of issues which goes straight to its own bottom line. Could you explain what your brother is doing there?
Chief Executive: I do not know exactly what my brother and my sisters are doing....
Question: I'm sorry, but you did, as Chief Secretary for Administration, you are the one who gave him permission to go straight to New World Development.
Chief Executive: I didn't. It was the Chief Executive himself because of a possible conflict of interest. I did not deal with my brother's case. But that doesn't really matter. The important thing is the Secretary for Civil Service examines each and every one of these cases if there is a conflict of interest. If there is a conflict of interest, approval will not be given. In each and every case there is a period where they cannot undertake or take up jobs and that period I think is six months or in some cases longer or shorter, depending on the nature of the work involved. I can't remember of having agreed to any of these government officers dealing with property, dealing with land transactions being allowed to retire prematurely and immediately being allowed to take up jobs in the private sector dealing with property. So I think let's be fair in these analogies you make. A policeman going into a management job is one thing after sterilisation period, but this is quite different from what you described just now is a person, a specialist dealing with land on transaction matters being allowed to retire prematurely and immediately pick up a job in a property company to deal with property transactions. I really want to know the facts and if there is a case like that I want to follow it through.
Question: Given that the vast majority of companies listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange are incorporated not in Hong Kong but in Cayman and Bermuda with all the loss of sovereignty and jurisdiction for Hong Kong which this involves and also the economic effects, can you please tell us the government's plans for expediting company law reform and possibly stamp duty on private companies to make Hong Kong a viable and attractive jurisdiction in which to incorporate important companies being listed here?
Chief Executive: I think we are following international practice. I think even the New York Stock Exchange allows things to be listed in the stock exchange which are not incorporated in New York and similarly Hong Kong is following that practice. Of course, in a listing, in any listing there are listing rules. The listing rules in Hong Kong continue to be updated to coincide with the best practices in the world. I'm not entirely up to date today but that is certainly the policy. As regards the company law reform, this is a continuous updating exercise that is going on. Our purpose is quite clear. Hong Kong is an international financial centre and is probably, arguably, the most important one in this Asian time zone. So we know it is our legal responsibility to continue to update our legal framework to ensure that we compare favourably with the best in the world. And our track record shows that we are quite popular. As far as last year is concerned, we have overtaken London, we have overtaken Paris in terms of initial public offers and I am sure this year we will be in fact No 2 in the world come from performance so far, second only to New York. That, in my view, is only a consequence of people gaining confidence in this stock market of international repute and understanding this is a quality market.
Question: Any new developments in my colleague's case - Ching Cheong? Could you tell us in what tangible ways, you know, what is being done, apart from the fact that you are talking to Mainland authorities all the time?
Chief Executive: Hong Kong people are as much concerned about Ching Cheong as Singaporeans are concerned. I think the reporting on Ching Cheong is far more extensive here in Hong Kong than in Singapore. The important thing I want to stress is we are working as much as possible to help Mrs Ching, updating her on what we know about the case and making representations we believe are appropriate. We know the case is now ... the Mainland authorities are laying charges. I hope this will be tried but this will be a difficult case because it involves espionage. In most jurisdictions, Western advanced economies or countries elsewhere treat espionage charges rather specially. I hope we are able to provide the sort of help to Mrs Ching she believes is right and appropriate. We are doing all we can.
Question: This is somewhat of a follow-up of the previous question. You gave a very vigorous defence of a free press but it's a bit like preaching to the choir here at the FCC. Do you make such defence of the advantages of a free press to your Mainland colleagues and what sort of reactions do they have to that defence?
Chief Executive: I am always proud of freedom of speech and freedom of the press in Hong Kong and I say it to everyone I meet. Some are Mainland leaders, some are from elsewhere. If you look back, way back, even in 1995, even before the transition I mentioned the freedom of the press to President Jiang Zemin openly and I continue to do that because we are proud of this asset. But it doesn't mean that this unique feature of Hong Kong is universally shared. The fact of the matter is that characterises Hong Kong and I am proud of it. And I am proud of saying it to everyone including some Mainland leaders, including foreign journalists and foreigners. I make no distinction in that regard.
Question: Another free press question I guess.
Chief Executive: While saying this, I must have full respect on what people look at this issue elsewhere, having different values system. But that is in the context in which I mention this subject to everybody, whether I stay in America, Europe or on the Mainland. I can mention because it really goes to the heart of what I believe in and this is something I have been repeatedly saying in most of my speeches delivered on the Mainland as well if you go back to what I say there.
Question: Regarding your Executive Order. It has been suggested to me that among the complications of bringing forward legislation are possible implications for the working press. I wonder if that is so and if you can explain what the possible implications of that legislation might be for the press.
Chief Executive: I do not want to talk about the legislation as such, but the legislation will be drafted and put to the legislature for debate. This is now something done by the Secretary for Security and this will be a wholly transparent exercise. I don't want to guess exactly what will emerge, what shape it will be. But the focus of that would be on surveillance, surveillance by law enforcement agencies, on their operations and this is certainly not our focus on how this might impinge on other spheres of activity like journalism.
Question: From the past, the issue of surveillance is one that has been a touchy one for journalists in Hong Kong even in previous legal exercises.
Chief Executive: A sensitive matter for the press all over the world. It is the past times, it's their habit, it's how they work. I think it's part of the journalists' list of practice. What I am saying is the legislation that we propose to put to the legislature will focus on government surveillance operations by our law enforcement agencies.
Question: Your role, quite rightly, is to brag about HK. Given the fact that you face a short term initially, what are the top three problems that you see? What are the top three priorities? Is solving Hong Kong's pollution problem perhaps one of them?
Chief Executive: That's definitely very much on my mind, air pollution, because that defines the popularity as a world city. We are trying very hard, but pollution is such a free spirit. It can come from elsewhere. It can be self-generated. And this is a continual uphill battle in the fight against modernisation and urbanisation and industrialisation. So I, together with my colleagues, am firmly convinced that if Hong Kong is going to prosper as an international Asia's world city, we must give sufficient attention, we must do something rigorously about any rise in pollution in Hong Kong and this will continually be our effort. But uppermost in my mind is how we instil a sense of greater confidence in our people, believing that they are quite unique, entrepreneurial. They have enormous resources and they represent very important assets to the community in this part of the world; greater confidence in themselves, a greater confidence in the community in which we live and perhaps greater confidence in the ability of the government to govern. This would be to me an important object in my term of office.
And then I would want very much, very much to see a more harmonious society coming into Hong Kong at the end of my term, however short or long. I think we have spent so much time arguing with ourselves, sometimes for good reasons, but not always for good reasons and we should concentrate on arguing on those things that deserve to be argued about and devote more energies to the sort of things that people look for, greater stability and prosperity of this place.
Question: To go back to the question on the executive order, why was there a need for an executive order in the first place? What was the emergency? One of the reasons the Bar Association was so tough was that it said this was a power that should have been with the legislature.
Chief Executive: Well we have never disputed, at the end of the day, that this must be done by legislation; but there was a comment, a remark by a judge on the efficacy of our surveillance operation. And also, there were some public concerns on how that surveillance activity is being conducted and monitored. For that reason, for greater transparency I issued this order to our law-enforcement agencies, telling them how exactly they should behave in mounting a surveillance operation, who should approve it, who should vet it and what the procedures should be. It is an internal regulatory matter, giving it procedural guidance and also procedural legal backing and the order was issued with the firm authority given to me under the Basic Law. It is not a law in itself. It has no binding effect on the population at large. It does not impose any criminal liability on the population in Hong Kong. It in fact codifies the practice of cross-disciplinary forces to ensure the human rights and privacy of our people are fully protected while a good balance is being struck during law enforcing operations. That is the purpose of this. I think it is right for the legal fraternity to challenge the things they are doubtful about. There are lawyers who agree entirely with what I am doing. There are lawyers who agree that they should be done in different ways. I totally accept that. But one thing I cannot accept is that we have a hiatus here, that we have a doubt in the minds of law enforcement agencies that they cannot carry out surveillance operation, which is part and parcel of keeping law and order in Hong Kong, which is so important for us, for you, for me, for the businesses and people and for the man in the street.
Question: RTHK: I'm pleased to be able to ask the last question. I didn't expect to be able to, so I'll make it rather general, something along the lines of "One Country, Two Systems". I think that under Tung Chee Hwa many people in Hong Kong felt that "One Country" took precedence over "Two Systems" and I was told by someone that you had confided in that President Hu Jintao had given you some very encouraging private words about standing up for the people of Hong Kong. I'm just wondering whether under your tenure, albeit perhaps one or two years, maybe longer, whether "Two Systems" can fight back to equal status.
Chief Executive: It's not a question of two systems fighting ....
Question: (the private encouraging words)
Chief Executive: First of all, I had a very interesting conversation with the president. He was very kind to me and he talked genuinely with me for over an hour....the three main themes that I might be confiding. The first thing he talked about was he knew about my stubbornness, he knew about the way I would behave and how I worked, and how I directed myself during my public service career; he asked me not to change - including my bow-ties.
The second thing is that he knew that I might have opposition here locally from all sorts of circles; he told me that he would support me and back me up.
And the third thing is, he said "you must care for the people of Hong Kong", listen to their views and do what you can. Those are the three things that he told me about. I bear them in mind. I do the best I can. So it's not a question of "Two Systems" constantly at war with "One Country". In fact, we derive the best of being part of a big nation, China, in terms of trade, in terms of political stability, in terms of continued prosperity. But we also derive enormous benefits from the "Two Systems", in preserving our way of life.
Everything we stand for, the way I answer questions, the way I'm allowed to be questioned, and the way that we all behave as an international community, the freedoms we enjoy, the level playing field, a clean government and everything that goes with it. They are all here. They are enhanced in my view since 1997. And I will keep it that way in my term, until the very last day of my term and beyond I hope.
Thank you very much.
Ends/Wednesday, August 24, 2005
Issued at HKT 17:56
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