TNAG-1469-FCO40-1998-Visits-by-members-of-the-Office-of-the-Unofficial-Members-of-1986 — Page 51

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accepting them as а

options, rather than as

Basic Law.

3.

contribution

to the Chinese review of the

attempt to determine the content of the

The Secretary of State noted that the management of the informal dialogue with the Chinese was most sensitive, and required

the most careful consideration. We had been going through a patch

of smoothness on all fronts: in the BLDC in China and in the public

debate in Hong Kong. We must do all we could to maintain the close

liaison between HMG and the CPG, but must not overwork any one channel of this. His meeting with Wu in Brussels had gone well, as

had the follow-up to it. But we must not overload this vehicle.

One problem was that the discussions in the BLDC could not be giving the Chinese any clear vision of Hong Kong people's concerns. The Hong Kong side did not speak with one voice, but employed their classic debating style. The Mainland participants tended to be interested, perhaps bewildered spectators.

We should consider

whether there was a risk in these divided counsels.

4.

+

Miss Tam observed that this made the handing over of the Secretary of State's trilogy of papers to Wu even more useful: the Chinese could anchor their impressions to that. It was true that there was little agreement among the Hong Kong members of the BLDC:

on the election of the Chief Executive, 2 Hong Kong members had said

they favoured universal franchise for this; 3 or 4 favoured an

electoral college, and one had suggested a college of advisers. The RC side seemed to envisage that the first Chief Executive would be selected by consultation, and that later there could be elections by an electoral college. On elections for the legislature, 2 Hong Kong

members wanted complete universal franchise, 4 opposed direct

elections at any stage, and one had suggested that at least a

quarter of the members of the legislature should be elected by

direct elections after 1997, and that before then there should be

some mechanism for convergence.

The PRC side had made 2

direct elections, but in

conversations outside the meetings had indicated that a small

percentage of directly elected members might be acceptable if there were a loud cry in favour of this by Hong Kong people. They would, however, prefer the PRC to decide on this in response to the wishes

observations

generally against

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