228-OCT-1992 19:16
HK GOVERNMENT HOUSE
CUNGIVEL
Mr E Llewellyn
852 521 1868 P.02
p.r. Elections (BL)
به خیر
णा
lio
(10
Election Committee
I attach two press articles, one from the Express of 4 September and one from the Wah Kiu Yat Po of 14 September together with translations of the key passages in each.
The Express article describes how when Independent LegCo members asked Lu Ping about the formation of the Election Committee, he replied that they had not yet come to any conclusion, and wished to hear more opinions. It is only reported speech but it confirms what I understand Eric Li and Simon Yip told the Governor.
The Wah Kiu Yat Po quotes "a Chinese source" as saying initial Chinese thoughts on the Election Committee were that it should contain perhaps 100 to 200 people, and did not need to take the form of the Election Committee for the first Chief Executive, but could take the Airport Consultative Committee as an example. This is not ideal as it is not a named source.
However, the two might just allow us to say something like the following:
"The Chinese side have not generally given the impression that they believe the structure of the Election Committee was fixed in 1990 by an agreement with the British. As recently as September, Lu Ping is reported to have told a group of Independent Legislative Council members who asked about the formation of the Election Committee that the Chinese side had not reached a conclusion on it and wanted to
CONFIDENTIAL