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a Gacheo
went further than they have done to acknowledge the concept of continuity from Hong Kong Government to SAR.
9.
That
All this points to early consultation with the Chinese.
however would take time. It is important that the Green Paper should be published as soon as possible, both because it is now
eagerly awaited in Hong Kong and because it is a basis for
discussion with the Chinese of our ideas for constitutional
development up to 1997. To include in the Green Paper no mention at all of possible changes to the role of the Governor would cause comment and probably arouse concern in Hong Kong. On the other
hand, it is doubtful whether we can include as much detail as in the
present draft.
10. The conclusion therefore seems to be that we should refer to the Governor without giving any details of what changes might take place in the 1990's. This could be done in two ways:-
(a) by simply saying that the question of whether changes were
needed to the position of the Governor after the proposed changes to the Executive and Legislative Councils have been implemented would be considered at a later date; or
(b) if Ministers decided that a Governor should be generated
locally before 1997, by putting forward a more generally worded proposal to the effect that post of Governor should eventually be filled through some system of election or consultation in Hong Kong. This would have the effect of encouraging comments on how this might be done without commiting us to any particular course of action. It would be less easy for the Chinese to attack both for this reason and because the wording used could be very similar to their own proposals for 1997.
The Governor's view is that, if Ministers are unable to accept his proposals set out in the Green Paper, the approach at (a) above would be preferable.
Acceptability
The argument
11. The Governor has commented in Peking telno 1092. for establishing some kind of independent 'auditors' to check the work done by the Hong Kong Government of collecting, collating and assessing public comments received on the agreement is basically to avoid the criticism that either HMG or the Hong Kong Government
has 'fixed' the assessment. Moreover it is quite possible that in
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/the