Tung holds up an old tradition
Old habits die hard. Although a great deal of fanfare has surrounded Tung Chee-hwa's decision to make next Wednesday's policy address the first-ever to be delivered in Cantonese, it has now emerged that much of the drafting for this speech is still being done in English.
In a further irony, one of former Governor Chris Patten's top aides is helping co-ordinate the process. Kim Salkeld, who served as deputy private secretary at Government House until June 30, has been temporarily assigned to the Central Policy Unit (CPU), the government think-tank traditionally responsible for drafting the policy address.
Mr Salkeld doesn't see any clash of loyalties in his new post. 'I'm still serving the Hong Kong community,' he said. 'There had to be someone pulling it all together and that someone was me.' The former Patten aide has taken on the task of collating submissions from government bureaux and branches into a first draft of the speech. He prefers to stress the continuity that will be evident this week, especially when Chief Secretary for Administration Anson Chan Fang On-sang tomorrow unveils a progress report on the commitments in the 1996 policy address.
'I think you'll be surprised by the degree of continuity,' Mr Salkeld said, sidestepping questions on how Mrs Chan will deal with the reversal of Mr Patten's pledges on political reform and the Bill of Rights. 'The emphasis of the Chief Secretary for Administration on Monday is going to be on business as usual,' he added.
But even if the old format has been retained and drafting is still being done in English, the handover has led to some changes. The use of a different language to deliver the speech has meant its translation into Chinese could no longer be left until the last moment. This year, translation work by the Government's Chinese Language Division began much earlier, to allow time for CPU chief Gordon Siu Kwing-chue to polish up the final draft in Chinese.
Problems have also arisen since spoken Cantonese differs so greatly from written Chinese that separate spoken and written versions of the speech have to be prepared, something never necessary for policy addresses delivered in English. 'We've some very experienced translators but there's a great difference between translating and writing a text that's to be delivered in Chinese,' Mr Salkeld said.