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Chris Yeung

GOVERNOR Chris Patten will today announce the setting up of a $100 million a year elderly services development fund in his third annual policy address.

  He will also unveil details of an increase in spending on kindergarten education of up to $200 million in a bid to end prolonged debate on government subsidies in that sector.

  The South China Morning Post has learned that care for the elderly and livelihood issues will feature prominently in the Governor's address, which is entitled 'Hong Kong: 1,000 Days and Beyond'. It will be delivered to the Legislative Council at 2.30 pm.

  The welfare initiatives come amid fierce criticism from the social service sector about the Government's decision to reject a report compiled by City Polytechnic academic Dr Steward MacPherson. The report recommended an increase in public assistance by up to 60 per cent.

  Mr Patten's 'livelihood card', however, is set to be criticised by China.

  A senior Beijing official yesterday urged Hong Kong people to beware of the move by Mr Patten to 'introduce welfarism vigorously'.

  Wang Fengchao, deputy director of the Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office, warned that excessive welfarism would pose a huge financial burden on post-1997 Hong Kong and lead to damage to the territory's capitalist system.

  The Hong Kong China News Agency quoted him as saying: 'Many people are worried Mr Patten will go ahead with drastic spending and do everything in the next two years it did not want or was not able to do in the past.'   Mr Wang said the Sino-British Joint Declaration has spelled out that the territory's capitalist system should remain unchanged for 50 years. China wanted no change even beyond that, he said.

  But he warned that the British Hong Kong administration had already quietly and blatantly changed the system in the field of political structure, legal framework and social welfare.

  'This is not merely going against the Joint Declaration and creating a hidden danger to the Special Administrative Region, this is bound to hurt the capitalist system. Hong Kong people must be vigilant against this and not be confused by a beautiful package,' Mr Wang said.

  Government information co-ordinator Mike Hanson said yesterday they had sent a copy of the Governor's speech to China through diplomatic channels.

  But a vice-director of Xinhua (the New China News Agency), Zhang Junsheng, last night accused the Government of lacking sincerity.

  He said Xinhua had merely been briefed by the Political Advisers' Office on the address. A copy was given to the Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office through the British Embassy in Beijing.

  As in the past two policy addresses of Mr Patten, the local Xinhua office was denied an advance copy.

  Mr Zhang said: 'This shows that he is intentionally avoiding the normal channels of link via us [Xinhua]. Such an approach has never been adopted by his predecessors.'   He claimed that showed the British side had no sincerity in improving relations with China.

  Mr Patten is expected to also announce a decision to accept some major recommendations by a working group on the elderly, headed by the former secretary for health and welfare, Elizabeth Wong Chi'en Chi-lien.

  Spending on elderly services this year is expected to be about $7 billion.

  The new measures include specialised training for nurses in private homes for the elderly and improvement of their facilities.

  Additional funding for kindergarten education will go to the training of teachers and subsidised schools for children with learning difficulties, it has been learned.

  The address will also include a brief section on how to enlist the participation of China-appointed Preliminary Working Committee (PWC) members in the Joint Liaison Group talks on transition issues.

  This has been received with reservations by some PWC members.

  They called on the Government to lift the ban on contacts between civil servants and the PWC in order to demonstrate its will to co-operate.

  PWC member Ng Hong-mun said the PWC was of a different nature to the JLG and that the two should not be mixed.

  'The PWC deals with concrete arrangements related to the transition of sovereignty, while the JLG is a liaison body at the diplomatic level; it is not appropriate to confuse the two,' he said.



Patten tonic for elderly