SINO-BRITISH negotiators have reached an agreement in principle for construction of a naval base for the People's Liberation Army (PLA), despite the political rift over Governor Chris Patten's reforms.
China yesterday reaffirmed that co-operation on non-constitution fronts would suffer because Mr Patten had revealed contents of the 17 rounds of secret talks and yesterday tabled the remaining parts of his 1992 electoral package.
The sharp attack from Beijing during the day included allegations that the Government was ''lying to the public and misleading the media''. (See Page 3) Despite this, experts from both sides at the Joint Liaison Group (JLG) succeeded in bridging their differences in key issues relating to the naval base, paving the way to draft a final accord on the disposal of military land.
It is understood that the Chinese JLG team is also prepared to hold expert talks on the airport projects as early as next week.
Another positive sign that Beijing was prepared to get back to business came from Guangdong's provincial police head, Chen Shaoji.
He issued a strong assurance that under no circumstances would long-time co-operation with Hong Kong counterparts be adversely affected by the Sino-British political row.
