POPABT (6)
CONFIDENTIAL
Reference...
restrictions on that right for the protection of national security.
PRE 1997: LAW IN HONG KONG
11.
There is nothing in international law which requires a state to legislate to restrain words, however offensive, against a foreign state or its authorities. The Declaration on the Principle of International Law Concerning Friendly Relations (UNGA Resolution 2625 (XXV)), which itself is not law, does however require that no state shall tolerate subversive activities directed towards the violent overthrow of the regime of another state. There is no English or Hong Kong law to such an effect.
12.
It has been a frequent source of complaint in recent weeks (though not at a level above Ambassador Ke) that HK has been used as a basis of subversion against the PRC. If this accusation is repeated and if it threatens to frustrate our ability to deal with the Chinese on the BL and JLG business (the latter being a very big 'if'), should we be considering whether we should anticipate 1997 and make some provision in HK laws on the lines of para 6 (A) and (B) of the outline set out in the appendix to this minute?
13.
I am well aware of the political and presentational objections to such a course, which would be largely, if not exclusively, cosmetic. (No-one with any experience of sedition would ever want
to put a sedition trial in train). And I am not, in this minute, urging it on you. But I am urging you to consider the possibility of such a course if the Chinese remain obdurate in their reluctance
to resume business. As I have indicated above, Article 19 of the ICCPR is not absolute (though we might need to look to the ordre public rather than national security exception pre 1997); one country two systems casts its shadow before its realisation and, in effect, means that the price HK pays for the continuation of its life style involves the adoption of a Nelsonian eyepatch as regards events to the north; the retrocession in the case of Hong Kong is unique; and there is the precedent of the Cinematography Ordinance
CODE 18-77
CONFIDENTIAL