TNAG-1718-FCO40-2398-Hong-Kong-1987-Review-of-Representative-Government-1988 — Page 158

fr

5/ü

Im

2. My malevola

many thanks

سع

4

SECRET

Private Secretary

0 8 FEB 1983

110

te:

CC:

8

RJT 'McLaren

8 February

PS/Lord Glenarthur PS/PUS

Mr Gillmore

Mr Hum. HKD

ما

нко идёт нив от

From:

Soucray 2 Statz

1 OFEB 1988

A

VISIT TO HONG KONG BY MR EDWARD HEATH,

MP:

WHITE PAPER ON REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT.

1. My wife and I attended a dinner given by Mr Heath in Salisbury on 5 February. Before the other guests arrived I was able to have a word with him about his visit to Hong Kong to follow up the Secretary of State's conversation with him on 4 February (Mr Hum's minute of 5 February).

2. We concentrated on the forthcoming White Paper on Representative Government. I began by correcting the figure for the number of directly elected seats to be introduced into LEGCO in 1991 which had been quoted at the Secretary of State's meeting, explaining that it was ten out of 56, not ten out of 66. Mr Heath made it clear that he thought this proportion was too low. He feared that the White Paper would go down badly in Hong Kong. In his view HMG and the Hong Kong Government paid too much attention to the views of the kind of people who wished to preserve the status quo and not enough to the more representative people with whom Mr Heath was in touch. I said that this was unfair. The Survey Office exercise had been a genuine attempt to discover what Hong Kong people thought about the issues covered by the Green Paper. It had been very successful in eliciting opinions; the response in terms of submissions received had been unprecedented. More generally, the Hong Kong Government went to great lengths to sound out public opinion before legislation was introduced or action taken. Mr Heath was not impressed. He received a different picture from his own contacts, most of whom favoured the early introduction of direct elections as the best

preparation for 1997. He claimed that some of the young people he knew thought that the best contribution HMG could make would be to introduce direct elections quickly and then get out, leaving the Hong Kong people to adjust themselves to 1997. I said that that view was surely untypical. Indeed it was one I had never heard expressed myself. If the UK were to show any sign of leaving Hong Kong before 1997 most people would think we were running away from our obligations. In response to Mr Heath's argument that 10 out of 56 was too small a proportion of directly elected seats for

SECRET

/ 1991