DATELINE: HONG KONG

The free flow of commerce, the free flow of money and the free flow of information; that's the principle on which Hong Kong works: Francis Moriarty.
Introduction: Hong Kong has been the most important base for Western foreign correspondents covering China and southeast Asia for more than a century. Many of the more six hundred of the correspondents operating out of the Crown colony belonged to the Hong Kong Foreign Correspondents Club; the largest professional association of its type in the region. Francis Moriarty, a RTHK reporter, is chair of the Club's Freedom of the Press committe.The following is the exdited text of an interview at the Foreign Correspondents Club on 12.2.97.
Our primary concern was that the handover would be used to set a precedent for accreditation and so we had about three or four points that we wanted included in any agreement between the British and the Chinese. First of all, we wanted that responsibility for media handling for the changeover rest wholly with the Hong Kong Government Information Service [GIS]. This is after all a Hong Kong event. The GIS knows the Hong Kong media. We work together and we don't have problems beyond the sort of problems that exist between government information people and journalists anywhere else in the world. The other thing we wanted was that any accreditation that allowed you access to events until Midnight [June 30] would work after midnight. We didn't want parallel systems of accreditation. We wanted that freelances be treated exactly the same way as staff members. We also wanted no vetting either here or before reporters came here. Accreditation is done for security reasons around the world. There are international standards on that. We didn't have any problem with that.

The agreement that was reached in the joint liaison group between Britain and China on the handling of the media was essentially on paper everything that we had asked for. Indeed, the GIS has recognised that it doesn't have the expertise in handling an event this size and have gone off and got an international consultancy to help handle it. These people will have expertise in looking after Papal visits or the Olympics, that scale of event.

This is going to be an historic event. There will be leaders coming from all over the world. We accept that for security reasons you cant have every clown who claims to be a journalist, wandering around with what could be a bomb in his camera. That is one level of accreditation.

The other level of accreditation which is of concern is that of bureaux and foreign correspondents. Right now foreign correspondents just come here. In the rest of China, foreign correspondents just don't show up. You have to be approved by the Chinese foreign ministry and you have to register with the All China . Right now we don't have that applying in Hong Kong. There has recently been set up in Hong Kong, a pro-China organisation, called the Hong Kong Federation of Journalists. If this is just one of their united fronts, an organisation of sympathetic journalists, that's fine. if this becomes the sort of thing with which you have to register, that is another issue. We are concerned that Hong Kong remains a place where journalists just come and we don't have to go through any of that foreign ministry business.

The third issue is a the bureau level. Right now you may have an organisation that is accredited with two bureaux in China; one in Shanghai and one in Beijing. But they also have a bureau functioning in Hong Kong because Hong Kong has always been separate. Is there a possibility that some one in China is going to say, 'You now have three bureaux in China; one in Beijing, one in Shanghai and one in Hong Kong. Which one would you like to give up?'

We have expressed all of these points directly to both the British and the Chinese sides so that they could be discussed in the JLG. We have written to Xinhua and I am sure that the Hong Kong and Macau Affairs office [of the Chinese government] is well aware of our position. Certainly we have had very long discussions with the Hong Kong government and the GIS. Obviously we have also had talks with the Hong Kong Journalists Association to ensure we are all on the same track.

Alan Knight

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