A
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appointment of the new
arrival
in Hong Kong:
can be finalised
Peking.
in
Governor and the timing of his
once these are resolved the paper
conjunction with Hong Kong and
4.
There is however
needed.
earlier decision
is
one limited point on which an
new Governor faces
it is
When the
16 January
virtually
the Hong Kong media on
inevitable that he will be
publication of the
the Green Paper which will launch the 1987
Review. The Hong Kong Government has
has consistently stated
that the paper will be published in April or May. At the
Secretary of State's office meeting we considered briefly
two alternative options.
asked about the timing of the
5.
as
The first option would be to allow the entire
review exercise to slip by a substantial period, perhaps
much a s a year.
At the Secretary of State's office
meeting Dr Wilson and I explained that this did not appear
to be politically feasible. The Acting Jovernor of Hong
Kong is very clear in his own mind that such a delay would
be publicly acceptable in Hong Kong and would provoke
strong criticism with a serious effect on confidence. He
certain that neither EXCO nor LEGCO would agree to
is
delay.
6.
I believe that this option has to be ruled out.
the
a
A second alternative option would be to introduce
limited delay into the timetable for the review.
Originally we suggested that the publication of the Green
Paper might be allowed to slip from May into June. We had
in mind in particular the possibility of a meeting between
the secretary of State and Wu Xueqian towards the end of
May, during a stopover on the proposed visit to Tokyo. It
since transpired (Peking Telno 003 refers) that Wu
will be absent from China at that time.
examining the alternative possibility of a meeting in Bangkok, when both Ministers will be attending the ESCAP
meeting towards the end of April. There would now seem to significant advantage to be gained from allowing the
has
be
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