2
By Round 15 we seemed to have reached pretty much the end of the road, and we were expecting OPD(K) to have to take a decision to that effect. But the Chinese raised the prospect of a first stage agreement at that round (more explicitly and helpfully than before). They suggested an agreement covering the voting age for LegCo, DBS and MCs, the voting method for DBS and MCs (but not LegCo), and an agreement to disagree over appointed seats on DBs and MCs. They wanted us to agree as part of that package that members of Peoples' Congresses should no longer be prohibited from standing for election for DBs, MCs and LegCo. We made it clear at the time that we would be prepared to contemplate this concession, but only in return for something substantial. Agreement on the voting age would not be enough; with the voting age at 18 in China, they could never credibly have argued against this. Nor would agreement to the voting method for DBS and MCS only be enough; the Chinese were only agreeing to the method already in operation in MCs and the majority of DBs. For the package to be acceptable to LegCo we had to have the voting method for LegCo too, given the publicly-voiced support for this from within LegCo itself. We had also come under increasing time pressures.
The Chinese have sought to suggest that agreement could easily have been reached on a first
deal part
if only we had
to agreed
discuss arrangements for the LegCo elections separately. This is disingenuous. Not only had we explained in detail to the Chinese that such a separation would buy us no more legislative time. But they themselves proposed that the first stage agreement should include LegCo in respect of
of both voting age and People's Congress members. They did argue that the voting method for LegCo should be discussed later, but they offered no reason for this. They had already discussed the issue with us in several of the earlier rounds and it was raised by Douglas Hurd with Qian Qichen in October. So to suggest that we had introduced the point at the last moment was deliberately misleading.
We told
The so-called agreement
agreement to disagree over appointed seats also proved to be a dead end. the Chinese immediately after Round 15 that it would only be of interest to us if it meant that we could Robin took Jiang abolish appointed seats in 1994/95. Enzhu through this very carefully and Jiang did not contest it. Only after the OPD (K) meeting (and after Jiang Zemin's meeting with Clinton in Seattle) did it turn out at Round 16 that the Chinese could not agree to our abolishing appointed seats in 1994/95.
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