COHAIV
CONFIDENTIAL
Secretary of State
PA
32
HKB 020/13
From:
CO Hum
Hong Kong Department
Date: 25 November 1988
Private Secretary
FOREIGN AFFAIRS COMMITTEE ENQUIRIES
CC:
PS/Lord Glenarthur
PS/Mr Eggar
Mr Gillmore
Mr McLaren
Mr Holt, PRU
1.
Please refer to your minute of 22 November to Mr Holt,
recording an exchange between the Secretary of State and
Mr Michael Jopling about future reports by the House of Commons
Foreign Affairs Committee. Mr Jopling said his instinct was that
Hong Kong was a safer bet than South Africa: the Secretary of State
commented that South Africa was becoming progressively less unsafe.
2.
I think it has to be said that Hong Kong is becoming
progressively less safe as a subject of enquiry by the House of
Commons Foreign Affairs Committee. The parliamentary consensus
over Hong Kong has come under some strain over the past two years,
in particular over the pace of the development of representative government in the territory. There would be considerable potential risks in a full-scale enquiry by the Foreign Affairs Committee, which would arouse intense interest and activity in Hong Kong.
3.
I have no doubt that there are lobbies in Hong Kong which
would try to turn the Select Committee's report into an indictment
of our administration of the territory in the run- up to 1997 and
a call for faster constitutional change. Their activity at the
recent hearing of the UN Commission on Human Rights on our record on
dependent territories gives us a foretaste of the lobbying which they would employ with the Committee. Representatives of "democratic" groups travelled to Geneva for the hearing, briefed
CONFIDENTIAL