TNAG-1434-FCO40-1917-Hong-Kong-leading-personality-Sir-Yue-Kong-Pao--businessman-1986 — Page 158

CONFIDENTIAL

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4. Also at this meeting, five special groups of the BLDC

were established.

The two most important are on the

relationship between the Central People's Government (CPG)

and the SAR; and on the Political System of the SAR. The

first meeting of the special group on CPG/SAR relationship

took place in Shenzhen on 31 May and 1 June. Sir Y K Pao

attended on the second day. The meeting was prominently

reported in the Hong Kong media (gist of reports on topics

discussed in Hong Kong telegram No 1678, attached).

5. We understand the overall programme for the drafting of

the Basic Law to be:

6.

(a) BLCC will collect views.

will be produced by the Drafting Committee in

early 1988.

Preliminary text

Published in Hong Kong for

further consultation by the BLCC;

(b) Draft Basic Law for submission to the Chinese

National People's Congress Standing Committee

will be produced in late 1988-early 1989. Draft then published in Hong Kong;

(c) BLDC will then produce revised draft for

submission to the NPC Standing Committee in

1990. Basic Law will then be promulgated.

We have no formal standing in the drafting of the Basic

Law and the Chinese are very sensitive to any suggestion

that we can dictate policies for the SAR, which will be a

part of the PRC after 1 July 1997. We hope however that we

will be able to influence the drafting process through

in formal contacts, and Wu Xueqian told the Secretary of

State on 23 May in Brussels that the Chinese did intend to

discuss the Basic Law with us in draft. The crucial aspect is that the Basic Law should accurately reflect the

for us

agreement.

CONFIDENTIAL