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version of the Basic Law, although we would have liked to see
more of our suggestions accepted by the Chinese side. However,
the Basic Law was not a document to which the British
Government gave or had to give its agreement.
Consistency of Proposals announced by the Governor with Basic
Law and Joint Declaration
The British Government's proposals announced by the Governor in
October 1992 are fully consistent with the Joint Declaration.
There cannot be any question of a breach of the Joint
Declaration. Annex I merely provides that the legislature shall be "constituted by elections". Annex II provides for
closer co-operation in the second half of the period up to
1 July 1997. Accordingly, we have made proposals and we have
been and are still discussing them in good faith with the
Chinese side. The proposals are also entirely consistent with
the BL. To demonstrate this, I should like to deal with each
of these seven proposals in turn.
(i)
To lower the voting age from 21 to 18.
The BL does not specify a voting age for any elections in Hong Kong. 18 is the voting age in
both the UK and China.
(ii)
(ii)
(a) To replace the corporate voting in existing
functional constituencies by individual voters.
The BL does not define the electorate in
functional constituencies.
(b) To propose 9 new functional constituencies.
(This is consistent with Paragraph 6 of the Decision of the National People's Congress on
the formation of the first LegCo of the SAR
promulgated with the BL which would increase the
number of functional constituencies from the
present 21 to 30).