TNAG-1717-FCO40-2397-Hong-Kong-1987-Review-of-Representative-Government-1988 — Page 109

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26 JAN 836

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Mr McLaren

Minule

PS/Lord Glenarthur

Private Secretary

Hong Kong Department

DATE:

26 January@1988

CC: Mr Gillmore

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а

HONG KONG: REVIEW OF DEVELOPMENTS IN REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT

A

1.

Ministers will wish to be aware of the outcome of our exchanges

with the Chinese about the decisions to be announced in the White

Paper on 10 February.

2. As agreed, HMA Peking passed the Chinese on 15 January a paper

illustrating how we intend to deal with direct elections in the

White Paper, including a reference to the Basic Law. The paper was

in effect the text of Chapter III (Direct Elections to the

Legislative Council) and Chapter VIII (The Way Forward) of the White

Paper.

3.

On 22 January Ke Zaishuo conveyed the Chinese response to HMA

Peking. He expressed their gratitude for the paper. He said that

it gave rise to no problems of substance: the Chinese side therefore

had no objection to it. But he had raised two technical points:

(a)

The final sentence in paragraph 6 of the paper

(sidelined) referred to "a slight preference for having

having direct elections in addition to, rather than

instead of, the present system of indirect elections by an

electoral college". The Chinese saw some inconsistency between this and the decision in paragraph 12 that the 10

directly elected seats should in 1991 take the place

of the 10 seats currently filled by indirect elections

from the District Boards;

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