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members into the Legislative Council in 1985, i.e. just over 40% of the total membership. This was a more rapid change than had been envisaged in the Green Paper. It also advanced from 1989 to 1987 the next review of the system and undertook that this would include both the question of direct elections and the position of the Governor as President of the Legislative Council. White Paper noted that the bulk of those who had commented were in favour of an element of direct elections but starting in 1988 rather than immediately. Contrary to the impression that proponents of early direct elections have subsequently tried to give, no promise was made to introduce direct elections in 1988.
23.
In other areas, however, the White Paper stepped back from some of the more far-reaching ideas put forward in the Green Paper. In particular, matters such as the composition of the Executive Council, a possible ministerial system and the general position of the Governor were set aside for consideration at a later stage.
In
24. Apart from the absence of any widespread interest in these other issues, a major reason for the note of caution in the 1984 White Paper was that, by then, the Sino-British Joint Declaration on the Future of Hong Kong had been initialled and was soon to be signed. a key paragraph the Joint Declaration lays down that the post-1997 legislature will be constituted by elections. The inclusion of the phrase was a major concession by the Chinese that was long fought for and only conceded at the eleventh hour. At the time it was seen as helping to make the Joint Declaration acceptable in Hong Kong and in Parliament. It probably did. But it was also vague. It did not lay down what form the elections would take. And the provisions of the Joint Declaration had nothing to say about the relationship between the executive and the legislature or about whether a ministerial system could be developed.
The Chinese reaction
25. In retrospect it is surprising that the Chinese seem to have paid so little attention to the whole 1984 review. At the time they were probably preoccupied with the negotiations on the future. They may well also have thought that the Joint Declaration effectively created the sole framework for further constitutional change in Hong Kong and that other factors, including further reviews by the Hong Kong Government, had become irrelevant: all further change would have to await the passing by the National People's Congress of a Basic Law which would lay down in detail the constitutional structure of the post-1997 Special Administrative Region where it had been left unclear in the Joint Declaration.
/At the time
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