CONFIDENTIAL
3. The Secretary of State agreed there was a tendency among some local people to treat politics like a debating society.
HJ
We wanted to see good candidates from the business community, standing for election.
What were Mrs Gorman's-
impressions?TM
Mrs Gorman replied she was afraid the prevailing attitude she had encountered in the business community was one of great cynicism. The taipans had their own future worked out and were not interested in putting their money into elections. (She quoted as typical a remark by someone called Simon To (?) saying "Why should we pay to give a few people in Kowloon the vote?") The middle-rank employees, those who would be staying on after 1997, were too scared to put themselves forward. Mrs Gorman said she had been told that China was known to have a large number of cadres (15,000) in place in most largish firms to report on people's attitudes.
5. The Secretary of State said he was not in favour of Britain giving money for a variety of reasons.
The scope for allegations of corruption was just one of them But he would look into what more could usefully-be done to help with education and advice.
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6.
Mrs Gorman’W
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second point was that, the people of Hong Kong had not been given a chance to make their case for independence. Could not something be done through the United Nations for example. She realised this might not be a very realistic option. The Secretary of State agreed that this was a non-starter. The consequences of history meant. that some people, for example the Kurds or the Tibetans unfortunately drew the short straw. The best way to help. them was to put pressure on the governments of those countries to which they belonged
PJMAVH/2.
CONFIDENTIAL