TNAG-1720-FCO40-2400-Hong-Kong-1987-Review-of-Representative-Government-1988 — Page 20

CONFIDENTIAL

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The Challenge of the Future

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It is not yet possible to assess the full significance of the changes of the past three years; nor the precise way in which LegCo will continue to evolve. But it is clear that it will continue to change rapidly. By 1997, at the latest, all the official and appointed members will have been replaced by elected ones, although the proportions and methods of election still await the passing of the Basic Law.

24.

The most obvious implication of this is that the administration will have to learn how to manage a wholly elected Council. If we are already in effect a minority Government in the legislature, we will clearly become more of one. The administration's proposals will increasingly be more carefully, and more publicly, scrutinized. We shall have to learn to present them better. And there will always be those who appeal to populist sentiment. Often this will be anti-Chinese or anti-British as well as merely anti- establishment.

25.

It follows from this that the Government will have to devote more time and resources to managing LegCo. We shall have to involve its members more closely in the formulation of policy, possibly by appointing them as members of committees which advise the executive. We shall have to think very hard, in the light of the Basic Law, about how Government business is conducted in the future, almost certainly without any officials sitting in the Council. may have to encourage, at some point, some kind of unofficial "Government party" in LegCo. This would itself require a great deal of management and nurturing.

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26.

All this will have to be done in the relatively short period of time during which Hong Kong will be moving towards an unprecedented change and the administration will have to deal with its own problems of staff morale. These will arise both in the context of 1997 and of adapting to the new political age, whether this means civil servants becoming politicians or becoming overshadowed by politicians.

27.

The British Government will remain one stage removed from this feverish activity, while retaining the responsibility for ensuring the maintenance of overall stability. It will not be a comfortable position. A more populist LegCo, which has a greater influence on the Hong Kong Government as a whole, will often make demands that may seem unreasonable or immature, or even not in Hong Kong's best interests. But it will be very important, both in Hong Kong's short-term interests and Britain's own longer-term ones, that HMG should handle such moves with sympathy and understanding. However uncomfortable the process may sometimes be, we need to build, and allow to develop, institutions which will survive the changes of 1997.

CONFIDENTIAL

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