TNAG-0570-FCO40-703-Planning-paper-on-Hong-Kong-1976 — Page 144

.SECRET

En G

香港總督 督府

GOVERNMENT HOUSE

HONG KONG

RECEIVED IN

51

1st June 1976

14 JUN1976

#

Das Lauanu,

Planning Paper.

2.

HILLOD/28/1

I enclose copies of our redraft of the

I think that our essential objective should be an agreed programme of action in Hong Kong, as suggested in your paper, susceptible to monitoring in hard terms in the FCO. I do not see how Ministers can defend Hong Kong except on the basis of such a programme. I therefore attach particular importance to the new Annex D.

3.

I really cannot accept the accusation in your paper that reform is obstructed by Officials and Unofficials. I have never suggested anything of the sort. There is of course debate, disagreement and compromise, as there is at the centre of any government, but not obstruction of essentials. I would be seriously at fault if I had permitted it, as I must take full personal responsibility for all final decisions.

4.

I suggest you must be wary of over- playing institutional change for its cosmetic value in the UK. There could be great value in such change for Hong Kong provided it is evolutionary. But it can never be of a character to pacify UK critics and in any case must not be pushed so fast as to risk efficient or accepted government here. In the final analysis your defence of Hong Kong in the UK will have to rest on the ability of the Hong Kong Government to deliver on an agreed programme, so nothing should be done that could impair this. There is also the Chinese angle to consider, mentioned in Teddy Youde 's letter to Cortazzi, which applies to both institutional change and trades unionism. I think the moral to be drawn from his letter

P.L. O'Keeffe Esq., CVO

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