If
elections which took place within the Election
Committee should themselves be open and fair.
agreement could be reached on these principles,
the British side would be willing to consider
whether an Election Committee could be devised on
the basis of the composition and ratio set out in
Annex I of the Basic Law.
On the functional constituencies, the electorates
should be of substantial size. Experience had
shown that corporate voting could lead to an
individual having control over several votes in
functional constituencies. With very small
electorates, there was a risk of corruption, of which there had been a recent case in Hong Kong. The British side therefore proposed to maintain
the gradual development of the existing 21
constituencies, and would be willing to make
proposals for 9 new constituencies taking account of Chinese ideas and based (as they had proposed)
on organisations.
The Foreign Secretary also underlined that the whole purpose of
holding the talks was to achieve continuity, and that it was
therefore essential to reach agreement on objective criteria
for the through train. The two sides agreed to make efforts to speed up the progress in the talks.
31.
In rounds eight and nine, the British side fulfilled the
Foreign Secretary's undertaking by putting forward revised proposals on the Election Committee and the Functional
Constituencies, even though the Chinese side still maintained
their refusal to discuss objective criteria for the through train. The details of the revised proposals are set out in Part III of this White Paper. Part III also explains why the
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