RESTRICTED
12.
There have thus been elaborate arrangements to involve Hong
Kong people in the drafting process. We welcome this. The exercise
has also been a very open one: the media have been kept briefed on
discussion in the Drafting Committee and even on the progress of the
draft as this has evolved. There has been a very free exchange of
views within the Committee.
13. As I have made clear, responsibility for the drafting and
promulgation of the Basic Law, as of any other Chinese law, rests
with the Central People's Government and the National People's
Congress of China. But the provision of the Joint Declaration to
which I have referred, linking the content of the Joint Declaration
with that of the Basic Law, gives the British Government an explicit
locus standi. We are entitled to satisfy ourselves that the Basic
Law fully and accurately reflects the Joint Declaration of which we,
with the Chinese Government, are co-signatories. And this we shall
do.
14.
The production of the first draft of the Basic Law is the
outcome of considerable effort. The Joint Declaration itself was an
international instrument without precedent. Its provisions are now
to be reflected in China's domestic law, giving assurance that for
50 years a dynamic, free-trading economy will retain a high degree of autonomy within a socialist state. The imaginative concept of
"one country, two systems" is thus taking legal shape.
15. The draft Basic Law is a long and complex instrument. Much of it reproduces provisions of the Joint Declaration word for word: this is obviously reassuring. For the rest, we shall continue to
study it carefully and to pay close attention to comments made on
the draft, particularly in Hong Kong.
16. I must stress that the Basic Law as now drafted is no more
than an initial text. It is not yet complete. Parts of it are
certainly not yet right. Chinese spokesmen readily acknowledge that
fact too.
RESTRICTED