CONFIDENTIAL
16.
prepared to continue this difficult task in the transition period, it is most unlikely that capable Hong Kong Chinese will emerge ready to take over from us.
33.
The second essential is that there must be no attempt by the Chinese to encroach on the administration of Hong Kong through the operations of the Joint Liaison Group or the Land Commission. Their tasks, clearly set out in the Joint Declaration, are the implementation of the agreement and, for the JLG, in the 1990's the management of the transition. If the Chinese do not refrain from interference and do not respect the promise in the agreement that the United Kingdom will be responsible for the administration of Hong Kong up to 1997 (a responsibility exercised by HMG through the Hong Kong Government) there will be no confidence in their willingness to respect the autonomy of Hong Kong thereafter. Investment and the professional classes on which so much of Hong Kong's success depends, will be frightened away. In this period, the maintenance of the morale of the Civil Service and of the Police will be vital. Their steadiness and loyalty have brought Hong Kong through two difficult and unsettling years. They will need to be convinced that their role and performance will be as valued after 1997 as it has been before.
34. The third essential task will be to establish a more visibly representative form of government in which, to quote the words of the Hong Kong Government White Paper, "the system of government is firmly rooted in the community". This process will inevitably be accompanied by a more highly charged political atmosphere in Hong Kong. Any new government structure which emerges is very unlikely to be on the Westminster model. It is not to be expected that the Chinese will tolerate after 1997 confrontational politics in Hong Kong: and in any case the people of Hong Kong do not
/want them.