CONFIDENTIAL AND PERSONAL
30 September 1993
Roderic Lyne Esq, CMG
No 10
HUB RITS
L6 OCT 1993
DESA
3
HONG KONG
1.
Many thanks for your letter of 8 September about your testimony to the Committee of the Hong Kong Association on 1 October. Good luck!
2.
The
I enclose a set of all-purpose bull points and, as requested, a child's guide to the electoral talks issue. next main events are the Foreign Secretary's bilateral with Qian in New York, also on 1 October, and the Governor's annual address to his Legislative Council, on 6 October.
On
3. I think you will find the assembled company a) resigned to the failure of our talks with China on electoral issues but b) worried about what the resulting row will do to British commercial prospects in China (and in Hong Kong post-1997). the first they are probably (though not certainly) right. On the second, there is not very much comfort that you can give them, other than to say that history suggests that the Chinese may find one or two high-profile contracts to place away from us to make their political point, but that for the great mass of business transactions they will be as hard-headed as always, row or no row (and of course they are simultaneously having rows with France over Taiwan, and the US over most things, which doesn't help them).
4.
The generic question one usually gets is why the Prime Minister/Foreign Secretary/Governor have decided on a headlong rush for democracy in the twilight years of British rule, after 150 years of inactivity, when we should be doing all we can to promote our position in China post-1997 etc. To that, I would say that the thirst for greater democracy is not something foisted on a reluctant Hong Kong by a bunch of Westminster politicians, but a change in Hong Kong brought about first by the 1984 Joint Declaration which made the return to china a certainty, and secondly by Tienanmen. For us to spend our final years in Hong Kong repressing that movement would hardly be good for stability. Nor would it serve the interests of business in the medium/long term, because the best available bulwark post-1997 against the spread of
corruption/nepotism/croneyism and general disregard for the rule of law is a credible LegCo which can stand up for itself. This line of argument does not always convince, but it has the merit
Lyne.PET.JRB
CONFIDENTIAL AND PERSONAL