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Miller concluded
concluded that he wondered whether we could provide any Whitehall, as opposed to HKG, comment on Mr Cha's paper.
4. I said that we should not be able to comment on the paper which had been submitted to the Basic Law Drafting Committee and was therefore a matter for the Chinese. That said, our aim just as much as Mr Cha's was stability. We we re implementing the agreed proposals in the White Paper with due care and prudence. Mr Miller pressed me to comment on how ideas such as
Mr Cha's would be taken into account in the 1987 review.
said that all ideas expressed in Hong Kong were naturally noted and would no doubt be considered in 1987.
I
5. Mr Miller asked how Chinese ideas, set out in the Basic
Law,
and British ideas, resulting from the 1987 review, could be made compatible. We could not both go our separate ways. Was the Joint Liaison Group a vehicle for discussion of such
matters? I pointed to the terms of
reference of the
of the Joint Liaison Group, underlining that it was tasked to concentrate in
its early years on matters such as international agreements, GATT, etc. The 1987 review would, of course, precede the
circulation of a detailed text of the Basic Law
the Basic Law in Hong Kong. I hoped that the Chinese, who were at present adopting a wait and see attitude and commenting neither one way or the other on
Our moves on constitutional development, might be persuaded that the measures we we re implementing would be right for Hong Kong in the future. They might then incorporate them in the
Basic Law. Mr Miller asked how Chinese views would eventually be made known to us. I said that I was sure that if they wished to give us their views they would find no difficulty in doing so.
L.c. Emman
W G Ehrman
14 August
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