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4. Also at this meeting, five special groups of the BLDC
were established.
The two most important are on the
relationship between the Central People's Government (CPG)
and the SAR; and on the Political System of the SAR. The
first meeting of the special group on CPG/SAR relationship
took place in Shenzhen on 31 May and 1 June. Sir Y K Pao
attended on the second day. The meeting was prominently
reported in the Hong Kong media (gist of reports on topics
discussed in Hong Kong telegram No 1678, attached).
5. We understand the overall programme for the drafting of
the Basic Law to be:
6.
(a) BLCC will collect views.
will be produced by the Drafting Committee in
early 1988.
Preliminary text
Published in Hong Kong for
further consultation by the BLCC;
(b) Draft Basic Law for submission to the Chinese
National People's Congress Standing Committee
will be produced in late 1988-early 1989. Draft then published in Hong Kong;
(c) BLDC will then produce revised draft for
submission to the NPC Standing Committee in
1990. Basic Law will then be promulgated.
We have no formal standing in the drafting of the Basic
Law and the Chinese are very sensitive to any suggestion
that we can dictate policies for the SAR, which will be a
part of the PRC after 1 July 1997. We hope however that we
will be able to influence the drafting process through
in formal contacts, and Wu Xueqian told the Secretary of
State on 23 May in Brussels that the Chinese did intend to
discuss the Basic Law with us in draft. The crucial aspect is that the Basic Law should accurately reflect the
for us
agreement.
CONFIDENTIAL