TNAG-1850-FCO40-2625-House-of-Commons-Select-Committee-on-Foreign-Affairs-enquiry-1989 — Page 58

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TRAJECRIPT A SELECT COMMITTEE ON HONG KONG

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12 JUIB 1989

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SIR DAVID VILSON (COFT):

So clearly the whole process is going to be delayed

and clearly also it should be delayed so that there is nOW

time

for adequate consultation in this new situation.

It probably will not surprise you if I say that

people in Hong Kong at the moment are not concentrating

much on the Basic Law. When you were in Hong Kong you

will have found that it was in any case a minority

interest, even then. For most people it was something

which was too complicated and too esoteric and too

distant.

That is doubly the case now.

Nevertheless,

the time will com when we shall all

have to realise that the Basic Law remains important.

After all these horrifying events have passed into

history, that Basic Law will still be the foundation

document for Hong Kong for 50 years after 1997 and it will

ramain very important indeed, more important if anything

than before that we should get it as right as it possibly

can be.

I cannot at this stage guess how much the whole

process of drafting the Basic Law will be delayed but it

sears to ma to be inevitable that it will be delayed.