XINHUA (the New China News Agency) was yesterday accused of choosing only its friends as Hong Kong advisers to the Chinese Government. A Hong Kong delegate to the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) said the local office of Xinhua had failed to include a wide representation of people in its advisory bodies. Wan Tai-min told a meeting of the CPPCC that Xinhua officials had ''apparently selected friends'' for the CPPCC, National People's Congress (NPC) and the Preliminary Working Committee (PWC). ''In my view as a CPPCC delegate, I think they tried to gauge people's character and include only those who had good relations with them,'' he said. ''Whoever invites them [Xinhua officials] to meals, they invite them to sit on such bodies.'' He said he would write to the Chinese premier, Li Peng, to make a formal complaint. However, Xinhua deputy director Qin Wenjin said Mr Wan's complaint should not be taken too seriously. And assistant director Lee Wui-ting said Xinhua had tried to include members from all sectors of society in the bodies preparing for the 1997 handover. Mr Wan asked why representatives of the tourist industry and show business had been excluded from the advisory and working bodies. ''The tourism industry contributes a very large part of the territory's income - why aren't they represented? They have even got two seats in the Legislative Council,'' he said. Mr Wan said China should not exclude singers such as Anita Mui Yim-fong, who had participated in pro-democracy activities, from the CPPCC, NPC or PWC. ''This should not be counted in the criteria of selecting the members,'' he said. In Beijing, a request for advanced funding to be drawn from the Special Administrative Region's (SAR) public funds for the promotion of the Basic Law was rejected yesterday by Chinese officials as ''inappropriate''. The funding appeal, made by Hong Kong delegate to the NPC, Chan Wing-kee, sought $200 million to promote the post-1997 constitution in the territory. He suggested a new organisation be formed to manage the funding allocation for campaigns as well as to borrow money from the Bank of China. He was supported by Peter Wong Man-kong. ''What we would be doing is for the benefit of the SAR. It is, of course, reasonable to make use of the funding,'' Mr Wong said. But their appeal was rejected by Zhou Nan, the director of Xinhua, who said it would not be appropriate to allocate the use of the SAR's reserves at this stage. The suggestion was also rejected by the Hong Kong and Macau Director of the Bank of China, Huang Diyan. Mr Huang said the bank as a commercial institution, would not give out loans in such a manner.
