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iii. that the proposal be put to Wu Xueqian by Sir R
Evans in a personal message from the Secretary
of State on the lines of the annexed draft.
Sir E Youde and Sir R Evans have been consulted over these
recommendations and concur.
BACKGROUND AND ARGUMENT
Redacted under FOI Exemption S 27 (1)
History
4.
The Secretary of State will recall the awkward
period following Xu Jiatun's Press statement in November
1985 that the British неге not fulfilling their obligations
under the Joint Declaration.
The re were various
manifestations of Chinese anxiety about developments over
representative government,
It was
eventually agreed that the two sides should engage in an
informal dialogue, without pre-conceived ideas, on the need
to achieve convergence between any reforms to the structure
of Govenment in Hong Kong before 1997 and the structure of
the Government of the Hong Kong SAR after 1997.
5.
We have since had further exchanges with the Chinese
during visits by Ji Pengfei and Lu Ping to Hong Kong, and by Mr Renton and Sir W Harding to Peking. The Chinese
agreed that the subject need not figure on the agenda of
the third meeting of the Joint Liaison Group, no doubt out
of the concern to ensure that its first meeting in Hong
Kong should be free from contention. Some of the worst
Chinese suspicions may by now have been dispelled, but
there remains a need for a freer and more detailed exchange
of ideas if convergence is to be achieved.
6.
The next two years will be crucial. There are two related aspects of the problem, on each of which we have strong interest in dialogue with the Chinese:
a
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