'7
Hong Kong Observers Ltd.
507-509, Yu To Sang Building,
37 Queen's Road Central, Hong Kong.
House of Commons,
933
AL
CORREV
12th January, 1988
DISTRU
ра
68
+co
London SW1,
England.
Dear Mr. Hurd,
I am writing to you on behalf of the Hong Kong Observers, in order to draw to your attention a number of issues related to Hong Kong which you may consider relevant to the forthcoming House of Commons debate on the Hong Kong Annual Report for 1987.
The Observers
The Hong Kong Observers is an independent, non-partisan group formed in 1975 to comment on the policies and actions of government and other institutions in Hong Kong. Its members comprise predominantly young Hong Kong-born Chinese professionals, including doctors, lawyers, journalists, teachers, engineers, bankers, architects and business executives.
The Joint Declaration
Our group believes that the 1984 Sino-British Joint Declaration on the Question of Hong Kong can provide the basis for a successful transition to Chinese sovereignty in 1997, preserving the territory's present social and economic systems for at least 50 years thereafter.
The promise of a "high degree of autonomy" is central to the Joint Declaration, as a means to ensure that Hong Kong's capitalist system, the basis of its prosperity, need not suffer under Communist sovereignty. The preservation of that "autonomy" depends in turn on the development of a representative system of government, firmly rooted in Hong Kong itself. The Joint Declaration provides for this need by stipulating that "the legislature shall be constituted by elections."
We believe that the acceptability of the Joint Declaration, to both Hong Kong and Westminster, depended critically upon an understanding that the promise of "elections" meant no less than true democracy founded on universal suffrage. The British and Hong Kong governments furthered this belief in the White Paper published in Hong Kong in November 1984, which concluded its discussion of the future of the Legislative Council with these words:
"With few exceptions the bulk of public opinion from all sources suggested a cautious approach with a gradual start by introducing a very small number of elected members in 1988 and building up to
a significant number of directly elected members by 1997."
བ, u
HURB 040/2
2 7 JAN 1988
/....2