A VICE-DIRECTOR of the Hongkong and Macau Affairs Office, Mr Wang Qiren, has said China had always opted for co-operating with Britain on issues concerning the territory. On calls that the mainland must put Hongkong's interests into consideration when playing the economic card, Mr Wang said China had always had the territory's interests in mind and that it did not want to play any kind of economic card. He said the motive of China's statement on Container Terminal 9 - saying the contract would be invalid after 1997 as the project had not been discussed in the Sino-British Joint Liaison Group - was also meant to ensure the project could straddle 1997 andthat the deadlock was not difficult to break. Mr Wang said he had not heard of the Chinese Ambassador to Britain, Mr Ma Yuzhen, having contacts with the British Minister with special responsibility for Hongkong, Mr Alastair Goodlad, on the resumption of talks on the territory's political developments. Meanwhile, Britain's Foreign Secretary, Mr Douglas Hurd, yesterday said his government was in complete support of the planned democracy reforms that have infuriated China. ''Economic freedom and political freedom are both aspects of the same human desire to run one's own life,'' he said during an official visit to Jakarta. ''I believe that this link . . . is one reason democracy is so important in Hongkong. ''We fully support the Governor of Hongkong in his determination to ensure that strong democratic institutions should continue to flourish and develop.'' If they were not, investors would be unprotected and businesses subject to arbitrary political decisions.
