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the status of my proposals, particularly in the light of
Press leaks about new ideas tabled by the British side. I
can confirm that the British side did table revised
proposals in July and August this year. These differ, in
respect of the arrangements for functional constituencies
and the Election Committee, from the proposals I offered in this Council last year: in all other respects the proposals
are the same. They are proposals that we would be prepared
to recommend to this Council if they formed part of a satisfactory overall agreement which must, of course, include acceptable arrangements for the "through train".
165.
want to
Because of the confidentiality undertaking I do not
be
In
specific about the nature of the revisions.
general terms, however, we have made two major moves in an
attempt to meet Chinese concerns. First, we have devised a
new proposal for the nine new functional constituencies,
based on organisations as the Chinese have argued, and with
total cligible electorate of about a third of that in my
original proposal. We continue to insist that electors
should vote individually, not corporately.
have tried to meet China's
Secondly, we
preference for a four-sector
Election Committee of the kind set out in the Basic Law for
the post-1997 Election Committee.
We continue to argue that
all members об the Election Committee should themselves be
elected.
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