THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Secretary
(Hong Kong Special Administrative Region)
|
For Immediate Release
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July 3, 1998
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REMARKS BY
SANDY BERGER, ASSISTANT TO THE PRESIDENT
FOR NATIONAL SECURITY AFFAIRS,
AND PRESS SECRETARY MIKE MCCURRY
TO THE POOL
The Grand Hyatt Hotel
Hong Kong Special Administration Region
12:11 P.M. (L)
MR. BERGER: We just had a very good meeting -- the
President
just had a very good meeting with Martin Lee. It lasted about 15 or 20
minutes. Mr. Lee started by expressing his gratitude to the President for,
A,
coming to China; B, for what he said while he was in China, to the Chinese
people; and, C, for the remarks that he made this morning about Hong Kong
and
the importance of increasing democracy here.
He talked about the Asian financial situation and said that
what is critical, from his point of view, is that there be, through this
period, a democratic base put underneath any kind of economic reform; and
the
lack of a democratic base in his judgment has contributed to the economic
problems.
He suggested that the first year since the reversion has
gone
well, from a perspective of civil liberties and democracy. He obviously
believes that the process of democratic elections should be accelerated,
that's his view of that. The President and he talked about changes taking
place in China, the relationship of Hong Kong to those changes. As the
President said in his speech, Hong Kong can be a window of the world from
and
to China. Mr. Lee indicated that Hong Kong can also be, in a sense, a
laboratory for democracy for China -- that was not a quote, that was a
characterization.
Q What did the President say to him when he mentioned
that
the process of democratic election should be accelerate? Did the President
agree?
MR. BERGER: The President said what he indicated in
his speech this morning, that there ought to be more democracy in
Hong Kong, not less. I don't think it's for us to be expressing
-- to get into the specifics of what the time table of that might
be. But they've taken an important first step with the elections
for the new legislative council, a third of which are directly
elected. Mr. Lee would like to see that number increased and
that process speed up. Ultimately that's for the people of China
and Hong Kong to resolve. But I think the President expressed
the overall sentiment that more democracy, not less, will be good
for Hong Kong, good for China.
Q Sandy, did the President or Martin Lee talk
about any specific civil liberties concerns in Hong Kong since
the hand over?
MR. BERGER: No. He said that he thought in that
respect things had gone quite well.
Q "He," meaning Martin Lee said --
MR. BERGER: Yes. And he said, you know, there have
been a few problems here and there, but we don't need to go into
that today. He was quite -- you need to catch up with Mr. Lee
during the day, I think, so that he can characterize his own
views. But I thought, having met with him on innumerable
occasions in the past, he certainly felt very positive about
what's happened over the last week.
Q Did you have to get permission from the Chinese
government to meet with Mr. Lee, or how did you finesse that?
MR. BERGER: No. No, we neither sought nor, I
think, needed permission to meet with Mr. Lee, or this group of
people who are now meeting with the President, which is kind of
an aggregation of people from the judiciary, people from the bar
association, people from civil society here in Hong Kong. So
there was no need or certainly no request for permission.
Q Lee was complaining earlier today, or I believe
I saw him saying that -- complaining about the coverage
arrangements, or that he didn't want this to be a secret meeting.
Was that brought up at all and how did you guys decide to do what
you did with us, in terms of coverage?
MR. BERGER: Well, I'm not sure whether he knew what
the plans were. I mean, I think he's quite satisfied with the
way that it's gone. We just had a pool spray, we had pictures
taken when he was with the President. So I would imagine he's
quite satisfied by that.
Q Why did you change your coverage plans? At
first there was to be none of this.
MR. BERGER: You know, McCurry mixed it up every
morning. (Laughter.)
MR. MCCURRY: That's literally what happened.
Q Why did you change the coverage plan?
MR. MCCURRY: Because there was no point in making
an issue out of something that wasn't an issue. I think the only
concern we had was to demonstrate that there is a wide cross
section of democratic voices in opposition and we're having an
opportunity to see a lot of that cross section here and we didn't
want to single out any one individual in what is a much more
vibrant movement. And that was the recommendation of Ambassador
Boucher, who I trust with my life.
MR. BERGER: Counsel General Boucher.
MR. MCCURRY: Counsel General Boucher.
MR. BERGER: Let me just emphasize what Mike said.
We put together the schedule, there's obviously time constraints
that go into how you put it together. It was nothing -- there's
no message intended by the way it was set up; but as it became a
question, we just wanted to make sure it was not an issue.
Q Thank you very much.
