TNAG-1601-FCO40-2194-Hong-Kong-1987-Review-of-Representative-Government-1987 — Page 228

Redacted under FOI exemption section 27 (1)|

A

SECRET

The Hong Kong Government have sent us drafts of the

in

key chapters in the White Paper on direct elections and

the way forward. These drafts, which take into account

FCO comments at official level, are attached. They

embody the decision that an element of direct elections

to the Legislative Council will be introduced in 1991,

the form of 10 directly elected seats in geographically

based single seat constituencies. These would replace

the seats currently elected indirectly by the District

Boards. ExCo are content with the general thrust of the

drafts, but have asked for some further work to be done

on the wording and presentation.

The wording on the Basic Law will need to be shown to

the Chinese in good time to allow for the possibility

that they will want to suggest changes. We will also

want to remind them that they should make an appropriate

provision for direct elections in the Basic Law. I

therefore propose to ask our Ambassador in Peking to pass

the Chinese a paper illustrating how we intend to deal

with direct elections in the White Paper, including the

references to the Basic Law. Because of the tight

timetable before publication, he will need to do this

early in the New Year. There would of course be no

question of our explicitly seeking Chinese endorsement of

draft sections of the White Paper, although the paper