Mr Ham
CONFIDENTIAL
HKD 011/6/1
нив RECE
INDEX
2.
Taken
FROM: P F Ricketts
Hong Kong Department DATE: 7 October 1993
cc: Sir John Coles
Mr Fry, FED Special Advisers Mr Wye, RAD
PS/Mr Goodlad.
Minister
HONG KONG: DRAFT WHITE PAPER
A
17110
©
1.
When the Governor was here in late July, he said that he
thought it would be necessary for HMG to produce a White Paper
on the electoral talks, whatever the outcome. He suggested that the aim should be to have something on the stocks which could be
published quickly once the talks ended.
2.
I have been working on a draft since then. It assumes a
breakdown of the talks. I discussed an earlier version with the
Governor in September. He was content with the way it was shaping up, and with the proposed structure:
A personal introduction from the Secretary of State. This
would be a self-contained political statement on our case
and would therefore need to be frank about why we could not
accept what was on offer from the Chinese;
A longer section which would be dispassionate in tone, letting the facts speak for themselves, sub-divided into
three sections:
paper.PET.JRB
A potted history of the development of representative
government in Hong Kong, which would among other things explain why we did not introduce democracy earlier;
An account of the talks;
CONFIDENTIAL