*
this moment to assert themselves by rejecting the agreement
on the Court of Final Appeal, so recently and painfully
extracted in the context of the Prime Minister's visit to
Peking. The issue turned on the number of overseas judges
eligible to serve on the court, which would be Hong Kong's
substitute for the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council.
Some outside element would be important in ensuring that
the territory remained within the Common Law tradition. The
wording in the Joint Declaration was ambiguous, capable of
being read as
as meaning "one" or "several". The Chinese
naturally opted for the narrower interpretation. We had
accepted that was the best we could get; and we were anxious
to get the court set up and operating well in advance of
1997. But the Hong Kong Legislative Council and the Hong
Kong legal profession, insisted on the wider meaning, even
though that would mean no court at all. Members of Exco
joined in and attacked a
they had endorsed when
consulted earlier. The legislation had to be withdrawn and
the court could not be set up. Peking, predictably, found in
all this evidence of a British conspiracy with Hong Kong to
undermine the understanding of September and reopen the
issue. It seemed to me a foolish refusal to come to terms
with realities; also, a bad augury for the reception of any
future Sino-British agreements on the territory; and for
future relations between the Special Administrative Region
and Peking.
The announcement of Mr. Patten as Governor of Hong
Kong in April also aroused all Peking's latent suspicions,
even before he had time to read himself into his new post and
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