Ronald Arculli - Politics

G&W -
In the context of the 1997 handover, how do you think this younger generation of Josephians and the Hong Kong people will face the 1997 problem?

Mr. Arculli -
I am a bit worried that the younger generation would be too preoccupied with their own private matters and the 1997 handover is a very complicated issue which may cause a lot of anxiety in our society. I would encourage the young people of Hong Kong not to accept the views of local political parties or trust what the media say but try to go out by themselves with a more open view and see the what the actual situation is really like. Visit China and see the changes yourself. Maybe you could talk to your friends or family and discuss your views.

G&W -
Do you think the 1997 problem will have any impact on the educational system in Hong Kong?

Mr. Arculli -
The argument in the educational system is quite controversial. Even the experts in this field have expressed different ideas on their own. My opinion is that it depends on what you want Hong Kong's role to be in the future. If we want Hong Kong to continue to be an international city, Hong Kong should continue to be bilingual and not just concentrate on Chinese or Mandarin simply because we will become part of China after 1997.

G&W -
Being a member of the Liberal Party, do you think your party's objective has shifted in any way?

Mr. Arculli -
I don't think our objective has shifted but we have fine-tuned our strategy to the changing environment. Our basic belief still holds though. You see our party has not been the political scene for too long and sometimes it appears our party is weaving between different opinions. Especially before 1995, some Legco members from our party were appointed and some were elected - I was an appointed member from 1988 to 1991, we had 15 members serving in Legco - 7 from functional constituencies and 8 appointed. Before the September 95 election, there had been rumours that we were afraid of failure but the truth is, we fielded 15 candidates and 10 were elected. So through the election process we have learned a lot of lessons which should help with the development of our party. Another thing is that we are all quite successful in our own profession as businessmen or professionals, and we tend to think individually and have independent ideas on our own. If you have 10 people all thinking that their own ideas are the best, it is not easy to establish a stance acceptable to all party members. So sometimes you will have members from our party expressing different opinions as to whether the Chinese or British Government is right in taking a certain course of action. Sometimes we criticise both sides and it is difficult for people to gauge which side we are on. This is mainly the reason why outsiders tend to think that we are not holding our beliefs as strongly as a united party should. As a party we believe we are fighting for Hong Kong's prosperity and it would have been a much simplier job if we just say democracy is our goal. We feel we are the caring party and we serve our society by providing help to those ho are not as fortunate as ourselves.