M41301212
8 September 1992
Mr Hum
CONFIDENTIAL
or you
ATTED
сп
Foreign & Commonwealth
Office
London SW1A 2AH
113
Dear Stephen,
HONG KONG: CONSTITUTIONAL DEVELOPMENT
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At his meeting with the Prime Minister tomorrow, the Foreign
Secretary will raise consideration in London of the package of
constitutional decisions and proposals which Mr Patten wishes to announce in Hong Kong on 7 October. The Foreign Secretary plans to circulate a paper to OPD (K) colleagues very shortly,
but in outline:
the Governor wishes to improve the accountability of his Government, while strengthening its effectiveness; and to prepare for elections to the legislature in 1995 which will be seen to carry forward the development of democracy in a way
which may be able to continue after 1997.
to achieve the first objective, he proposes to separate the
membership of the Executive Council (ExCo) and Legislative - Council (LegCo) and to set up a new Committee to help manage
Government business in LegCo. This means that Mr Martin Lee
will remain outside ExCo: but his political opponents in LegCo, such as Mr Allen Lee, will no longer be members either.
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for the 1995 LegCo elections, the Governor believes that we should carry out our commitment to seek to persuade the Chinese to accept more directly-elected members than the Basic
Law allows (20 out of 60):
given that there is no prospect of the Chinese agreeing to this we should use the issue as a bargaining card and concentrate on other steps to
increase democracy which are
consistent with the Basic
pm.8sept/CONST/njc
CONFIDENTIAL
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