HUMAAV
SECRET
"PAO"
21
011
47
Private Secretary
In. Hyan
Jong
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2
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FROM:
DATE:
CC:
CO Hum
Hong Kong Department
21 July 1987
PS/Lord Glenarthur
Mr McLaren
Mr Fifoot,
Deputy Legal Adviser
Mr Masefield, FED
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17 July 1987.
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30 JUL 1997
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Content
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HONG KONG: FUTURE STRUCTURE OF GOVERNMENT
1.
30/%
In your minute of 20 July you recorded that the Secretary of
State had a number of queries about the concept of the Grand
Electoral College (GEC).
2.
It
The concept is neither new nor unfamiliar to the Chinese.
has been a matter for discussion in Hong Kong over the past 18 months or so, initially in the context of the drafting of the Basic
Law. It was put forward in a more formal sense when the then "Group
of 57" (now 71) published their blueprint for the future SAR's
political structure last summer. This group, comprising the more
conservative elements of the Basic Law Consultative Committee
membership, envisaged the GEC as a means whereby the Chief Executive might be elected without the potential confrontation and political
polarisation associated with elections by universal suffrage. The
GEC mechanism has since attracted some degree of wider support in
Hong Kong.
3. We were thus picking up an idea already in public currency when in Trilogy I (passed by the Secretary of State to Wu Xueqian in May 1986) we suggested that the Chief Executive might be elected by "some wider electoral college to provide a broader basis [than the legislature] for election" (Trilogy I, Paper II, paragraphs 7 and
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