TNAG-0731-FCO40-935-Appointments-to-Legislative-Council-of-Hong-Kong-1978 — Page 133

Flag A

NOTE

FOR THE FILE

adid

CONFIDENTIAL

Overtaken by

Subsequent

developments.

<

N

8.0/15 August

HK fur is

It Sofs guest.

HK in the Autumn

+

Whe

sh?

APPOINTMENTS TO LEGCO AND EXCO PA give live a brief on this subject

Dalgziva

1. During my recent visit to Hong Kong, I discussed with a number of people the possibility that the universities and polytechnic might be considered as a pool whence new members of ExCo and LegCo might be found. Lord Goronwy-Roberts considers that these two Councils might benefit from such a widening in the collective background of the members.

7/5

2. Mr Rayson Huang, the Vice-Chancellor of Hong Kong University, has himself recently been appointed a member of LegCo. However, in his view, although the academic community as a source of members was very desirable in principle, there were practical difficulties. In Hong Kong University itself, for example, 40% of the Dons were expatriates and a very large majority of the staff, expatriate and Chinese, were birds of passage who, in general, did not expect to spend more than one or two 3-year contracts at the University before moving on to other academic institutions, usually outside Hong Kong. In his view, and this was confirmed by Dr Keith Legg, Director of the Hong Kong Polytechnic, this applied equally to the Polytechnic and to only a slightly lesser degree to the Chinese University.

3. The influence of the universities was, of course, brought to bear in the Councils and other statutory bodies in Hong Kong, for example, 1/3rd of the local Unofficial Members of UMELCO were graduates of Hong Kong University.

4.

Mr Michael Stewart and I met a very impressive Chinese economist from the Chinese University during our visit there, a Dr Chen, and I have drawn the attention of the Governor to the possibility that he might be considered as a potential member of LegCo.

5. I also drew the Governor's attention to the trade unionist, Mr Chan Kan-chuen, who had so impressed Mr Hurst during Mr Chan's recent visit to London.. The Governor agreed that he would take note of Mr Chan. I told the Governor that if he proposed to recommend Mr Sandberg for ExCo and Mr Newbigging for LegCo, then I thought it was most important that he should find some more enlightened' candidates to balance them; so that his recommendations might be more acceptable as a whole.

.A.B. Stant

2 May 1978

cc: PS/Lord Goronwy-Roberts

Mr Cortazzi o.r.

Mr Murray

Mr M Stewart

CCNFIDENTIAL

JAB Stewart