TNAG-1597-FCO40-2182-Hong-Kong-1987-Review-of-Representative-Government-1987 — Page 124

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affect Hong Kong opinion on direct elections in either way. Chinese, for their part, are continuing to make known their own misgivings about direct elections and to seek to influence public opinion. This could affect the outcome either way, depending on the subtlety of their tactics.

24. It should be noted that when we come to discuss the outcome of the review with the Chinese they may seek to impose their own definition of "consensus": Zhou Nan told Sir E Youde on 5 December 1986 that it would be "unacceptable to people" if we described as a consensus a situation in which there was a divergence of views. Although this may have been a personal comment, it would make sense to Chinese minds as a definition, and could well cause difficulties

in our discussions with the Chinese.

25. At present it seems likely that the outcome of the Review on the direct elections issue will be along one of four possible lines:

(i)

(ii)

We might conclude that the majority of people in Hong Kong were clearly opposed to the introduction of direct elections

in 1988. This would evidently be welcomed by the Chinese. It would be important, however, that this assessment was widely accepted in Hong Kong, so that we could defend ourselves against the criticism that we had deferred to Chinese wishes.

We might conclude that there was no clear consensus, and that therefore no directly elected element should be introduced in 1988, with the question being reviewed again at a later date (say 1990). The Chinese would also be content with this. Once again, however, whether such a line would be politically tenable in Hong Kong would depend on whether this assessment

was widely shared. At the very least there would be fierce criticism from the pro-direct election lobby that we had avoided the issue and failed to respond to the expectations of Hong Kong people and stand up to Chinese.

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(iii) We might conclude that a majority of Hong Kong people favoured

direct elections in principle, but that in view of the continuing division of opinion on whether the time was ripe

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