TNAG-1468-FCO40-1997-Visits-by-members-of-the-Office-of-the-Unofficial-Members-of-1986 — Page 116

CONFIDENTIAL

51

Mr Ham

Л

MR MARTIN LEE

HKN02615.

1 AUG 1986

Y

AGB SE

FROM:

D C Wilson

DATE:

28 July 1986

1. Mr Lee came to have a drink with me at home on the evening of 26 July. He talked passionately and at length about politics in Hong Kong. On his general relationship with China he said that he had originally tried to work by quiet persuasion in the background. After Xu's press conference in late 1985 however he had decided that only by openly standing up against Chinese interference would it be possible to protect Hong Kong's interests. He thought it essential that if Hong Kong was to have a genuinely high degree of autonomy after 1997, there should be a government which could have and claim support from the population at large. This meant having an elected element. His present thinking was that it would be best if the draft of the Basic Law did not try to fix a rigid proportion of directly elected members for the Legislature but rather stated that the Legislature should be composed of some directly elected and some indirectly elected members, leaving the precise proportion to be changed over time. (I said I thought such a system which would allow for flexibility sensible.)

2.

As for the 1987 Review he thought it should go for one

revis

to bi achieve

quarter glected members. He had worked the.

3.

had fuited

We talked at some length about what was best for Hong Kong and how to achieve it. A main theme from him was that HMG and the Hong Kong Government should either stand out for what was best for Hong Kong or at least not agree in advance with the Chinese that certain things (eg some members of EXCO elected from LEGCO) were ruled out. On the 1987 Review, he was prepared to bow to my thesis that it would not be right to (a) either give the Chinese a veto or imply that they had one, or (b) produce a result which was so criticised by Peking that the Hong Kong Government was put in the impossible position of either climbing down or continuing a damaging confrontation. Clearly, however, his heart these this tik. consor and Tekeny, but again,

was set on stronger medicine than this. He aquiesced in Строста

autonomy by managing 10

in the 24

it relationship with 4. We talked briefly about Daya Bay. He questioned whether how a nuclear power plant was now economical and thought that, in preloreance

li for a the end, the Chinese might change it to a conventional plant M for economic reasons. If so, they would obtain great political flexible benefit in Hong Kong by saying that they had done so in response approach. to Hong Kong opinion. He said that if it could be shown that Hong Kong really needed nuclear power, then he would accept this and concentrate on the safety aspect. For the moment, he was not convinced that they needed it.

Декаў;

5. Like Emily Lau, he was critical of the recent three EXCO appointments as "yes men".

6.

|But, despite a somewhat excessive concentration on constitutional changes and nuclear power, he has some

/engaging

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