TNAG-1442-FCO40-1926-Constitutional-development-in-Hong-Kong-1986 — Page 148

CONFIDENTIAL

Redacted under FOI Exemption S 40 and 41

01/?

040/10

if we adopted a solution which even hinted at joint responsibility with the Chinese for the Walled City.

Constitutional Development

4. The Governor said he still favoured making 10 of the 46 seats in LEGCO directly-elected. He thought it would be possible to persuade the Chinese that this would pose no threat to them. Mr Renton suggested that the directly-elected members might wish to be members of political parties. The Governor disagreed. There were no political issues in Hong Kong to interest political parties. Moreover, the directly-elected members would not be appealing to the electorate as a whole, only to their own districts. Membership of territory-wide political parties would not therefore be of any value to them.

Future position of Governor

5.

The Governor confirmed that he was considering how to introduce the role of Chief Executive into the Hong Kong structure. His inclination was to have in place the best available legislative arrangements by 1988, and to appoint a Chief Executive in 1993/4. It would be important not to pre-empt Chinese views on the method of selection, by going into detail in the 1987 Green Paper. He suspected that the Chinese would opt for selection through a consultative council spread more widely than LEGCO.

Flodend

Jchine

Students Joint Funding Scheme

7.

Mr Renton said he thought some reduction in the UK contribution for 1987/88 might be inevitable. The Governor said this would go down very badly in Hong Kong, where people would point to the new money which had been found for the Y K Pao fund for mainland Chinese scholarships.

Hong Kongers would point out that they were citizens of a dependent territory, and therefore deserved better treatment than those who were not. The Governor added that HMG would, in his view, have to put more money into Hong Kong in a variety of ways as 1997

CONFIDENTIAL