SECRET
11. The choice therefore seems to lie between options C and D. The proposal for a Chief Minister has
a Chief Minister has the attraction of maintaining a
focus of British authority and moving appreciably towards an elected
Chief Executive, on the assumption that the Chinese would accept
that the Governorship should simply disappear after 1997. The Governor, however, is firmly opposed to this idea because of the
risk of the Chinese taking over the "governorship" after 1997. He
also opposes the establishment of a joint group based in Hong Kong,
and to that important extent is against option D as well, although
he accepts that the elected Governor would not be the
Commander-in-Chief and that HMG would retain reserve powers covering
foreign affairs and the right to dismiss the Governor if he exceeded
his powers. He argues that what the Chinese propose with the joint group is to introduce a supervising body to monitor the actions of
the HKG between now and 1997. The question is whether we c an
prevent the Chinese from exercising influence in Hong Kong and
whether we should not seek to control them. With this in mind we
might gain an important compensatory advantage by agreeing to a
joint group in Hong Kong at an appropriate time. (This is discussed
in detail in a separate paper on item 2.)
PROCEDURE
In
12.
The question of consultation with the Chinese is difficult.
order to underline our continuing responsibility up to 1997, we
would prefer to inform rather than to consult them on constitutional questions. This, however, is probably impracticable where the Governorship is concerned. We should be in an impossible position
if we published proposals which Peking then attacked publicly. We
must first decide what our aims on the governorship are and then
float them with the Chinese separately from, but in the context of,
the Green Paper proposals of which we shall shortly inform them.
13.
This is another point on which we disagree with the Governor.
He believes that there is little prospect of obtaining the specific
agreement of the Chinese to the idea of an elected Governor and that
by seeking their approval we would be accepting that they should
have the power of veto. He also considers that there is a
that the Chinese would not attack a publicly-floated proposition
chance
SECRET