Airport pressure kept up before Legco talks

CHINA yesterday reiterated on the eve of a legislators' meeting to scrutinise a $1.4 billion request for the North Lantau Expressway that it would not recognise any unilateral decisions by the Hongkong Government to go ahead with airport core projects.

Mr Guo Fengmin, Chinese team leader of the Sino-British Joint Liaison Group (JLG), said China had consistently objected to any unilateral decision by Hongkong to go ahead with airport projects without consulting Beijing.

''China has repeatedly stressed that the British side must strictly abide by the Memorandum of Understanding [on the new airport projects],'' he said.

Mr Chen Keqiang, a member of the Chinese JLG Airport Committee team, criticised the Government for failing to deliver any information concerning the financing of the North Lantau Expressway to China before seeking legislators' approval for the cash request.

Regardless of whether core projects would straddle 1997, Britain should consult China before any decisions were made on the financing arrangements, he said.

''The cash request to finance the North Lantau Expressway is another unilateral step taken by the Hongkong Government to push ahead the airport project. The Chinese Government will not recognise the legitimacy of the financial arrangement.'' The United Democrats' airport spokesman, Mr Albert Chan Wai-yip, said his party would in principle support the funding request as it was in accordance with the airport memorandum.

But Co-operative Resources Centre spokesman Mr Steven Poon Kwok-lim said his group had reservations about the request because the two governments had yet to reach a final agreement on the airport financial arrangements.

''We don't want to see a waste of public funds in financingthe core projects which are not endorsed by China,'' he said.

Meanwhile, Mr Guo said Chinese authorities were willing to discuss cable TV licensing in the next JLG meeting despite the current Sino-British impasse over the constitutional row.

''I don't think there is any major problem with the licensing of cable TV,'' he said.