SECRET AND PERSONAL
201
No Ricketts, head of Hin
The minister agrees the drrefty subject to the green light from No. 10.
Mr
ет уба
6.J. Dercy 2/12
PS/Mr Goodlad
Minitar
FROM
PF Ricketts
Hong Kong Department
DATE : 2 December 1992
ia 21124132 02/2 Rensed telegram
now feel!
HONG KONG : CONSTITUTIONAL DEVELOPMENT
A
1. The Minister saw earlier today my submission with a draft
Private Secretary letter to No 10 seeking the Prime Minister's
agreement to the Governor passing a message to the Chinese
side via C H Tung following the interesting points made by
consdev.FUT.kr
I now submit a draft telegram of instructions to the
Governor. This should of course not be despatched until we
receive the green light from No 10.
3.
I submit this telegram to the Minister because it
contains one additional thought. We have seen reports
that the Chinese may be thinking of setting up their preparatory body, possibly to vet contracts straddling 1997, before the Governor puts his proposals to
LegCo in February. In an effort to forestall that, we believe
that it would be useful for the Governor to add to his message the point that we very much hope the Chinese will not take action to set up new institutional arrangements while these
private contacts are going on. If they did so, it would make
THIS IS A COPY
SECRET AND PERSONAL
THE ORIGINAL UAS BEEN RETAINED
MENT UNDER
SECTION 3 (4) OF THE
FJULIO RECORDS ACT 1958