TNAG-1329-FCO40-1756-Future-of-Hong-Kong-test-of-the-acceptability-of-the-Joint-D-1984 — Page 141

CONFIDENTIAL

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STATUS OF THE WHITE PAPER

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In your minute you sought advice on the status and provenance of

the White Paper giving the text of the agreement with China.

think the White Paper must be a British Government document.

would enshrine the results of a negotiation conducted by the British

Government on which the British Government would be reporting in

due course to the British Parliament.

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5. It would however also be necessary for the text of the White

Paper to be reproduced (with its provenance made clear) in a Hong

Kong White Paper. This would be a suitable form for formal

presentation to LEGCO. The document would need to be published by

the Hong Kong Government in both English and Chinese. One way of dealing with this would be for the White paper published in Hong

Kong to encapsulate the entire text of the British White Paper, with

a short preface from the Hong Kong Government explaining what it is,

and perhaps a short terminal exhortation to the people of Hong Kong

to make their views known to the assessment office in response to

the wishes of the British Government (which would be expressed in

the UK White Paper). We should need to seek the Governor $ views on

this.

6.

A further consideration, as the Secretary of State points out,

is that of timing. The text of the draft agreement will be

discussed in LEGCO long before it is introduced into a reconvened

British parliament. This is inevitable, unless we are to think in

terms of calling a special session of the British Parliament in late

September/early October to hear the Ministerial statement on the White Paper. I understand that it is possible for a White Paper

to cannot be published and placed in the Library of the House

even if

arliament is not sitting. I think the Secretary of State was also

concerned at the suggestion in the paper on the test of acceptability which was lodged in Parliament that a Ministerial

statement should be made in Parliament when it reconvenes to

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Sitting introduce the White Paper, probably several weeks after its

publication.

Par laiment

A way

round this might be to have a statement after

reconvenes which would not explicitly be to introduce the

White Paper, though it would refer to it, but to bring Parliament up

to date generally after the Recess on the state of play in Hong

Kong, where the test of acceptability would already be proceeding.

CONFIDENTIAL

/FINANCE