TNAG-1439-FCO40-1923-Constitutional-development-in-Hong-Kong-1986 — Page 105

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to the Basic Law: he could say that the British wished to co-

operate, but that the end product of that co-operation must

be something acceptable to HMG and Parliament. We could not be in the business of dismantling representative government

in Hong Kong. He could speak in favour of the maximum

possible continuity. He could go on to float with Wu the

idea that we should let the Chinese have informally some

ideas on how such continuity could be achieved consistently

with the Joint Declaration. If Wu bit, he might then hand

over some ideas at his next meeting in September or October.

12. We agreed that this idea merited consideration, but

thought that we would need to consider very carefully whether

passing a document over at that level, and thus giving it

a very high profile, was the best way of making it easy for

the Chinese to adopt our ideas.

Zeal

Khalswelly

(A. C. Galsworthy)

14.3.86

G.F. 316

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