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The coll.
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brought to accept that, in the interest of maintaining that stability, some wider measure of democracy must be introduced. Possible ways in which this could be done include:
a. widening the franchise for the Urban Council;
b. phasing out appointed members of the Urban Council;
introducing an elected element in the Legislative
C.
Council.
10. We have in fact already started a policy discussion with the Governor and his Political Adviser, with the object of reviewing all our fundamental assumptions about Hong Kong, and redefining our long term objectives. The purpose of this review is firstly to enable us to decide the right moment to approach the Chinese in order to seek an understanding about what is to happen to Hong Kong when the New Territories lease expires in 1997 and, secondly, to enable us to be absolutely sure of what we shall be trying to achieve. The Governor has recently sent us his preliminary views, which were forwarded under cover of the Chief Secretary's letter of 6 July. This letter however is concerned mostly with the practical problem of the effective renewal of the lease. The letter touches upon the question of the timing of the approach to the Chinese, but does not go into any reassessment of our policies and objectives (this may partly be because of a misunderstanding by the Governor of what we wanted him to do). We shall be replying to Sir Denys Roberts' letter, explaining our intentions in more detail.
CONFIDENTIAL