CONFIDENTIAL
The final EC package will need to meet certain criteria:
- to obtain Chinese acquiescence it should reflect the four main categories set out in Annex 1 of the Basic Law;
- it must meet the Governor's bottom line that arrangements
should be open, fair and acceptable to Hong Kong;
.....
it should be consistent with the five principles set out in the paper we handed to the Chinese in February 1990. (Otherwise we would undermine one of the main arguments we have been using
to explain why the Basic Law was set aside in the Governor's
original Election Committee proposal).
The complexity of a proposed option should not necessarily bar it from serious consideration. Arrangements for an elected LegCo composed of three quite different categories of membership are bound to be complex.
8.
Given the criteria above, the main objection to Option A in the ExCo paper, as it stands, is the proposed overlapping membership with existing FCs, which is against the second of the 'five principles'. Adjustments that avoid this could perhaps be devised. The main objection to Option D is that the 'occupational groups', from which it is proposed the EC should
be elected, differ from (and are more democratic than) the corporate bodies envisaged in the Basic Law.
-
But is seems to me there
is room for negotiation here, once discussions without
preconditions got underway and we had shown ourselves ready to talk on the basis of both the 4-group model of the Basic Law and
the five principles contained in the 1990 exchanges
the Governor's criteria.
THIS IS A COPY
THE ORIGINAL HAS BEEN
CLOSED UNDER
as well as
FOI EXEMPTION NO....27.(1)
elec.comm.PR.JRB
CONFIDENTIAL