'age'..
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IN
2
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I
there would be an increasing need to give reassurance to the public and that he would have more credibility for doing this if he was seen to be standing up for Hong Kong's interests. This argument was even more important in the context of his lobbying on trade issues in the US and
elsewhere.
Mr Rogers asked if the Governor had to put forward his proposals now and why he had not discussed them first with the chinese. The Governor said that we had to have arrangements in place soon for the 1994/95 elections. This meant introducing legislation in the first half of 1993. HMG had been committed to pressing for more directly elected seats in Legco. On 25 September, the Secretary of state had urged this on the Chinese and had put forward the Governor's proposals as an alternative approach. It had been risky to give the Chinese such advance notice of his proposals. On the other hand, it would have been wrong to refuse to say anything publicly until an agreement had been reached.
Mr Rogers asked if the Governor could have made his speech later in the year, after consulting the Chinese. The Governor said that the Governor's Annual Address to LegCo was traditionally made in October. He had wanted to set out his plans for five years.
To have omitted constitutional development would have created immense speculation that would have been very difficult to handle. Rogers asked if the Chinese would have reacted differently if the Governor had consulted them first. The Governor said that he doubted it. He had stressed that his proposals were just that. But the Chinese had refused to put forward any alternatives. The real difficulty was that he was refusing to accept a Chinese veto.
So
Mr Rogers said that he did not think it helped Hong Kong if the Labour Party was destructive in criticising the Governor's proposals publicly. he would be recommending to Mr Smith and Mr Cunningham that Labour should support the Governor's proposals but say that they wished he had gone further. The Governor said that this was perfectly acceptable. He thought it would be helpful to have a Commons debate at some stage.
Would it?
Pros & Cons
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CONFIDENTIAL