TNAG-0568-FCO40-701-Planning-paper-on-Hong-Kong-1976 — Page 142

CONFIDENTIAL

9.

1

NOTHING TO BE WRITTEN IN THIS MARGIN

16.

Last year's

This policy, we would judge, would attract widespread public support and considerably ease the problem of making further progress towards a more readily defensible urban society. It would also appear to be a policy which exactly suits local circumstances and what is judged to be Peking's attitude to the institutions of the Colony. Recent difficulties over the election of a pro-Taiwan member of the Urban Council suggests that Peking's attitudes to the question of elections will not change in the near future; but it will be interesting to see whether the plans for some sort of elections in Macao come to fruition and whether this has any lessons for the very different circumstances of Hong Kong. Possible objections are:

17.

(a) that although right in principle the

execution of these plans may not be rapid enough to contain the disquiet felt in political circles here at the absence

of properly representative institutions; that a more responsive and less evidently authoritarian form of government might lead to pressure in the Colony for an elective system; and

(b)

(c)

that the Government evolved by these methods may find itself at odds with HMG

when the time comes to seek a solution

of the Hong Kong problem with the Chinese.

To these may be answered:

(a)

that the execution of these plans must necessarily take into account both the

political pressures here and the political realities in Hong Kong. If right in

principle, the question of timing is one

coring

which can be resolved with mutual

7447 D073840 101M 8/74 Cr.P.C. 839/3

(b)

consultation;

that pressure for greater public

participation in government will inevitably increase with the new generation which

CONFIDENTIAL

/has grown up