G.F 316
1.
SECRET 高度機密
Appointed Membership
PAO(S) 2/1156/91
Miss Sanders
Largely incorporated
into the White
Paper
For the first fourteen rounds of the negotiations the Chinese side opposed the British side's proposal to abolish appointed membership of District Boards and Municipal Councils. At Round 15 they put forward their first specific proposal, which was that the proportion of appointed seats should be reduced, from roughly a third to roughly a quarter of the whole. When the British side rejected this the Chinese proposed, on the second day of Round 15, an agreement to disagree formula on appointed membership, as part of a first
The formula read as follows: stage understanding.
"The British side propose abolishing the appointed membership in the DBS and the two
CS in the 1994/95 elections.
The Chinese
side propose that in 1994/95 a certain
proportion of the membership of these
district organisations should continue to be
After 30 June 1997, the
appointed members.
Government of the Hong Kong SAR shall
determine on its own the number of appointed members on the DBS and two MCs in accordance with the provisions of Article 98 of the
Basic Law."
2.
Six days after Round 15 ended, on 3 November, the British Ambassador gave the Chinese a draft MoU for a first stage understanding incorporating an agreement to disagree
This made it clear that based closely on the Chinese formula.
the British side intended to introduce legislation to abolish
SECRET 高度機密