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Cc 24/3
Thaytan 24/3
Loose Minute
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C12612
Dr. Wilson
مسلسل
hed a cyrded
with 7. Gulworth,
tik.
You and I met the Governor and Alan Scott on Monday
10 March to discuss the ExCo papers on the Development
of Representative Government and the Basic Law.
Representative Government Paper
2.
On the former the discussion focussed on Part III
of the paper. On the Section on the Governor (paras 3 - 7) we pointed out that the FCO position was somewhat misrepresented. The FCO had said, though only at official
level at this stage, that Ministers were likely to believe
that there should be a resident Governor appointed by and
responsible to HMG until 1997. The words "able to exercise their responsibilities for foreign affairs and defence" had been added in Hong Kong. Ministers had not so far considered the proposition that the foreign affairs and defence responsibilities of the Governor should be separated from his other responsibilities and devolved on an SAR style
Chief Executive before 1997. There were probably a whole range of options in this area involving more or less devolution and various forms of reserve powers. was making a very large assumption at the end of para 5 and in para 6, that would need to be argued out with London, and probably in Cabinet.
3.
The paper
The Governor said that in his view there was no other
way to proceed: if HMG would not trust Hong Kong to run its own internal affairs, how could we expect China to do
so after 1997. If we failed to devolve, we would be asking
the Chinese to act similarly after 1997. Nevertheless, he took the point that the intention to devolve had not yet been accepted in London and that this should be made clear in the paper on discussion of it.
24/3
G.F. 316
SECRET #2
/4.
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