IT HAS been a week since the story of my family's emigration appeared in the press. I suppose people have said whatever they have to say about it, and it is time I made a response to the affair.
Many have described the story as an exposure of my infidelity and hypocrisy, a blow to my personal credibility and that of my political party.
The sins imputed to me include faltering in my faith in the Chinese Government in 1989, sending my family abroad while preaching about Hong Kong's glorious future, and failing to win the confidence and support of even my own wife in my political undertakings.
I never hesitate to admit that I was in a state of despondency for some time after June 4, 1989. I had taken part in consultations and discussions for the drafting of the Basic Law in the previous years, and had seen beginning to emerge hopes of various sectors of the Hong Kong community and the Chinese Government arriving at a consensus on the most controversial points.
The hopes were shattered by June 4. An apparently unbridgeable chasm developed between Hong Kong and Beijing. Confrontation took the place of consultation in the Basic Law drafting exercise. The work of the Joint Liaison Group was suspended. Rational dialogue broke down between representatives of the Hong Kong people and the Chinese Government.
Perhaps there were people who remained as confident in Hong Kong's future as ever in those summer doldrums, or who knew exactly what they could do to restore the chances of a smooth transition.
