TNAG-1720-FCO40-2400-Hong-Kong-1987-Review-of-Representative-Government-1988 — Page 41

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Foreign and Commonwealth Office

London SW1A 2AH

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May 1988

Sir David Wilson, KCMG

Governor and Commander-in-Chief

HONG KONG

Dan Davil,

THE DEVELOPMENT OF REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT IN HONG KONG

1.

I must apologise for the fact that you have not received an earlier reply to your two despatches of 1 March. They have been read with close attention by

They offer a both Ministers and officials here. fascinating historical survey of the development of representative government in the particular circumstances of Hong Kong, and also draw attention to a number of

We important questions to be considered in the future. are all grateful to you for the clarity of your analysis. 2. It is instructive to consider the historical background in the first despatch from the "what if" viewpoint. If Sir Mark Young's ideas had struck more of a chord with the local community in the late 1940s and early 1950s and it is quite understandable that Hong Kong people then had more immediate preoccupations - might have been able to conduct our negotiations with China in the 1980s from a stronger basis of constitutional development in Hong Kong. "difficulties and dangers" identified by

But the

Sir Alexander Grantham were bound to be powerful inhibiting factors.

we

3. It is also instructive to look back, over only four years, at the 1984 Green Paper and the ideas that it floated, including the possible election of ExCo members

It was perhaps not and even of the Governor himself. only the Chinese Government, as you suggest, which was too preoccupied by the negotiations on the Joint Declaration to think through all the implications of the

The ideas put forward for discussion in the Green Paper. delayed Chinese reaction, when it came, gave us a much clearer recognition of the constraints within which the further development of representative government has to be pursued.

had

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