STET
RESTRICTED
[5. At the last meeting further agreement was reached on Hong Kong's future participation in international organisations. Discussion was taken forward on a range of important issues including future arrangements for defence and public order; the establishment of a Court of Final Appeal in Hong Kong; and future arrangements for the surrender of fugitive offenders between Hong Kong and foreign jurisdictions.]
6.
Annex II to the Joint Declaration provides that from 1 July this year the Joint Liaison Group will have Hong Kong as its principal base. In practical terms this means that each side will open an office for its Senior Representative in the territory; that from that time on most liaison will take place there; and that experts meeting under the auspices of the Group will generally come together in Hong Kong. But the full meetings of the Group will continue to be held in rotation between Hong Kong, London and Peking, as the Joint Declaration provides.
7.
It must be recognised that when the Joint Declaration was first published there were some misgivings in Hong Kong about the role and functions of the Joint Liaison Group. I am happy to say that these have very largely been dispelled. It is an accepted feature of the diplomatic landscape, as it will soon be on the Hong Kong landscape. It performs a necessary task. It does So discreetly and efficiently. Both the British and the Chinese
Governments attach importance to the clear statements in the Joint Declaration that the Joint Liaison Group is not an organ of power, and will play no part in the administration of Hong Kong.
8.
This House last discussed Hong Kong on 10 February, the day on which the Hong Kong Government published its White Paper on the development of representative government in the territory. [I do not propose today to recall the substance of the decisions contained in that White Paper. But it is instructive to note the reaction to the White Paper in Hong Kong all the more instructive because very little account was taken of it by the media here in making their own, often ill-informed comments.]
-
RESTRICTED