ROYAKN
5:
CHINESE ATTITUDE TO THE DEVELOPMENt of reprESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT
IN HONG KONG AND THE EMERGENCE OF POLITICAL GROUPINGS
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Principle of universal suffrage as ultimate objective now enshrined in Basic Law. Public opinion in Hong Kong has brought Chinese to accept that there should be a significant directly elected element in SAR legislature.
Such comments as the Chinese have made on the development of representative government before 1997 eg on the 1987/88 review made clear that there should be convergence between the development of representative government in Hong Kong and the Basic Law, which is to be promulgated in 1990.
According to Hong Kong press reports the Director of the New China
News Agency in Hong Kong, Mr Xu Jiatun, indicated in January that the formation of political groups would be in accord with provisions
on the right of association in the draft Basic Law. The full
significance of these remarks is not clear, but they would appear to
mean that China has no objections to the sort of political groupings which are now emerging in Hong Kong.
- (if pressed) The Chinese have given no indication that they plan to raise the profile of Communist Party activity in Hong Kong. Any such activities would in any event be constrained by the provisions of the Joint Declaration and the draft Basic Law which stipulates
that the socialist system and socialist politics will not be
practical in Hong Kong Special Administrative Region.