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181
Mr Paul, HKD
CONFIDENTIAL
88/HKB/011/1
MECE
24 FEB 1989
183
A
SK
Hong Kong's Legislative Council: the Impact of Elections
The Secretary of State was grateful for your minute of 19 July and Mr McLaren's comments. He found
Sir David Wilson's despatch of 16 July very interesting. He thinks that this whole question is of great importance. He feels that we need to look more closely at the consequences of the evolution of LegCo. He has noted for example that the passage of the defence costs agreement through the Finance Committee was by no means straight- forward. He wonders whether as LegCo develops further we might reach a point where, for example, taxation proposals have a difficult passage. Looking ahead at the further reforms now being mooted for the post-1997 legislature, the Secretary of State is concerned about the workability of a US Congress-style separation of powers in Hong Kong. A further major question is how the Chinese are likely to react to all this. We may have managed so far to carry them with us; but they may not be able to think through the full implications for the future as clearly as we should be able to, given our experience of democratic processes both at home and in other Dependent Territories in the past.
The Secretary of State wonders whether we should not therefore now set in motion a study of the questions raised by the Governor and the further thoughts set out above. He thinks that there may well be merit in enlisting the help of people knowledgeable about the problem, but somewhat removed from the coal-face,such as
Sir Percy Cradock or Sir Richard Evans. Might there also be merit in finding a constitutional lawyer, or someone with experience of other decolonialisations? I should be grateful if you could give thought to all this.
You
The Secretary of State feels that at this point it would be premature to circulate a paper such as the Governor's despatch to other Whitehall departments. should of course continue, in your contacts with other Ministries, to educate them on the need to take account of Hong Kong's democratic processes. Until we have clarified our own thinking on the implications of the present and future changes, we should however hold in reserve circulation of a forward-looking think-piece outside the
FCO.
25 July 1988
(R N Peirce)
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