ROBERT ADLEY, MP
HOUSE OF COMMONS
LONDON SWIA OAA 15/4
M. Manis fi Mr Bunke
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Mr Hum
14th April 1993
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Louglas
Legad Aderies
Planner News Dept.
Thank you for taking the trouble, firstly, to answer my letter about the current situation in Hong Kong. I have, of course, read your note to colleagues of 24th March.
The trouble stems, Douglas, as you know, from the manner in which the Chinese perceive that the 'discussion and agreement' took place regarding the proposals for the 1995 elections. That is the problem. "Discussion and agreement" is not, in my view, the same thing as the way in which "the Chinese were informed in advance", as stated in your letter.
As you again say in your letter "the Governor himself made this clear when he announced (my underlining) his proposals". You seem further to compound the confirmation of the change in the agreed procedures by actually stating in your letter that your exchange of letters with the Chinese Foreign Minister in 1990 did not (my underlining) result in an understanding between us on the 1995 elections. This is yet another reason for the necessity of sticking to the procedures to reach an agreement with the
Chinese.
There is little point in you and I having a semantic debate about this. The fact is that the Chinese believe that your passing a message to their Foreign Minister in New York about the contents of Chris Patten's forthcoming intentions, was not at all the same as the necessary discussion and agreement which was supposed to have taken place.
As you know, the Joint Declaration and all subsequent negotiations were, and are, supposed to be between the British and Chinese Governments. Indeed, you informed me in the House the other day, that you had provided this information to the Chinese Foreign Minister. That, surely, was itself a recognition that the intercommunication between the two Governments was, and is, the way in which our obligations, and theirs, are met. By transferring the basis of decision-making from agreement between the British and Chinese Governments on the one hand:
to a decision by LegCo in Hong Kong, is another de facto break with the agreed procedure.