SECRET 高度機密
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(g) The
Governor
draft.
PA
difficult and
said that the commentary prepared
by DPA was a useful reference in recasting the
said that in practice it was
indefensible for the Chinese to
talks without showing their own
He thought that the Annex to the
paper should indicate our detailed alternative
ideas rather than an inducement for the Chinese.
break off the
proposals.
(h)
(i)
(Action: Mr. Ricketts)
The Governor said that there was a political dimension in that the public might get impatient
with all this delay. SCA explained the constraints of the legislative timetable,
pointing out that the absolute deadline for a
decision on elected MC seats could not be
extended beyond mid-December 1993 bearing in
mind the critical timing for decisions on the
voting age
and the LegCo package. Mr. Ricketts felt that it might not necessarily be desirable
for us to stretch the timetable to the extent
that we had contemplated.
The Governor said that we should send a telegram
to London on the timetable, pointing out the
changing political mood in HK and the
disadvantage of further delays in reaching agreement. We should then explain the practical political deadlines against that background,
our judgement that it would not be
politically viable to push the deadline beyond
the end of the year.
The Governor said that we
should put the timetable to ExCo only after
informing London of our assessment of the
and
and
situation.
G.F. 316.
(Action Mr. Dinham/
Llewellyn/SCA)
SECRET #3