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2
appointed membership.
On 5 November Sir Robin McLaren called on Vice-Minister Jiang Enzhu to discuss the draft MoU further. He explicitly told the Vice-Minister that in our view the formula on appointed membership was only meaningful if it allowed the HKG to take action as it wished in 1994/95. He reminded Mr Jiang that our position was that there should be no appointed seats in 1994/95. He said that our understanding was therefore that the SAR would be free in 1997 to decide whether
to reinstate appointed membership. He used the word
"reinstate".
He explained that unless that was what the Chinese proposal meant, it would be of no value. In offering the Chinese side's preliminary reactions, Mr Jiang did not contest any of this. He made other observations on the draft MoU but did not contest this key point.
3.
For two weeks there was no further or formal Chinese response to the draft MoU or to anything that Sir Robin McLaren had said. Then, at Round 16, the Chinese side said that their formula did not mean that the British side would be free to abolish appointed seats in 1994/95. They claimed that we had misunderstood their position. They said that, if we agreed to exclude the question of the Legco voting method from a first stage understanding, they would explain their position further.
A
4.
In informal discussion during Round 17 the Chinese side said that, if the British side could accept that the voting method for LegCo should not be included in a first stage understanding, they could accept an agreement to disagree formula on appointed membership that would allow the British side to abolish appointed seats in 1994/95. The formula they
put forward was as follows:
G.F 316
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