CONFIDENTIAL
Reference....
11 Caleg torting Me 4% (he is avai
ん
4/
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ло спалі
eking news)
Mr Layden
HKD
t see
Khandan 4/2
Thayden
HONG KONG: CONTROL OF PUBLICATIONS CONSOLIDATION ORDINANCE
1.
O
Hong Kong telno 313 raises a difficult problem. We have still to see comments from Peking. Meanwhile I should record my own immediate reaction that repeal of this ordinance could lead to a damaging argument with the Chinese.
2. My impression is that the problem is one of presentation
Yes. butut rather than substance and that repeal of the ordinance would
really the pout
give no realistic added protection against the abuse of power by the SAR executive. Conversely, if repeal made any significant difference, the Chinese would surely regard themselves as being morally justified in doing whatever would have been possible had the legislation remained in effect. If, because of public controversy in Hong Kong, the Chinese felt they had to take a position, surely there is a risk that they would seek to define, in the terms which they wished, the temporal reference to "laws previously in force in Hong Kong" in Chapter xii of Annex 1 to the Joint Declaration.
3.
I doubt whether the Chinese would be convinced that the
but would arguments in (A) and (B) of Paragraph 5 were our genuine
be able
they
6 say to forestall
fo
reason for wishing to repeal.
In any event, they might well feel that whatever powers Hong Kong needed to control extremist publications in the Cultural Revolution might come in handy again. The more public controversy on this issue there is in Hong Kong, the likelier I feel it is that the Chinese would see this as a classic example of ""public opinion
the coutro very
by repeal? being manipulated by the Hong Kong Government".
Iain (. Im
I C Orr
Far Eastern Department K 258
233 5963
CODE 18-77
AWO Ltd.
7/84
4 February 1986
LKK 30141 RECEIVED IN REGISTRY
12 FEB 1986
DER OFFICER
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CONFIDENTIAL