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PS/Lord Caithness
14 March 1991
Private Secretary
Mr Burns
Mr Davies, FED MR bone, ERI
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(32)
Ms Saunders
14/3
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Ms Marsden, HKD
LORD CAITHNESS' "BRAINSTORMING" DINNER, 13 MARCH
1.
Lord Caithness was very grateful for the work HKD put in to preparing last night's dinner. I attach a copy of the guestlist. The Minister found it an enjoyable and stimulating occasion. He would like to organise another dinner in the near future with similar, or perhaps slightly smaller, number of guests.
Hong Kong
2. Lord Caithness introduced the general discussion with some observations about the present internal situation in China and invited comments on how China might develop in the next few years and what the consequences might be for HMG. Notwithstanding this initial steer the conversation veered immediately to Hong Kong. Mr Yahuda, in a series of interventions during the evening, developed the idea that Hong Kong needed to assert its autonomy now (ie from HMG) not just post-1997 (from China). The inevitable election of Martin Lee and company was bound to provoke friction with China. This was healthy and should not be repressed by HMG. It was a proper part of the maturing of an autonomous Hong Kong. Mr Hook spoke of the importance of training Hong Kong civil servants for life after 1997. There was a high degree of mistrust and ignorance of Hong Kong in China and vice versa. Hong Kong civil servants needed training to resist the infiltration of Chinese ways of doing things that would undermine Hong Kong. He believed that British
institutions such as LSE or SOAS could play a major role in preparing them. Echoing Mr Yahuda's comments, Mr Hook argued that Hong Kong civil servants should learn to practice autonomous government independent of London and Peking. Ms Righter similarly stressed the importance of properly staffing the post election LegCo so that the new Members had the resources to enable them to carry out effectively a critical and responsible supervision of the executive.
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