TNAG-1886-FCO40-2677-Overseas-visits-by-Sir-David-Wilson--Governor-of-Hong-Kong---1989 — Page 122

SECURITY CLASSIFICATION

Top Secret

Secret

Confidential

Restricted

Unclassified

PRIVACY MARKING

In Confidence

DSR 11C (Revised 5/87)

11. There are particular difficulties over the section

on the future political system. The Joint Declaration

says only that the legislature will be "composed of local

inhabitants" and "constituted by elections"; and that the

Chief Executive will be "selected by election or through

consultations held locally". There have been differences

of view amongst the Hong Kong members of the Basic Law

Drafting Committee, reflecting a similar divergence of

opinion in Hong Kong. Some members of the BLDC, led by

Mr Martin Lee, are pressing for the fastest possible

progress towards a directly elected Chief Executive and a

fully directly elected legislature. Others, including

such business figures as Sir Y K Pao, advocate a

considerably more cautious approach, involving minimal

evolution from status quo. The draft as it now stands

LEANS

embodies a position which lanes to the more conservative

of the two views. It sets a timetable for change after

1997 and proposes that referenda should be held in 2011

and 2012 to determine whether at that point Hong Kong

should have a directly elected Chief Executive and a

fully directly elected legislature. It also proposes

that the move to universal suffrage would require the

consent of the Chief Executive, two thirds of the

Legislature and the Standing Committee of the National

People's Congress. We shall need to press for

modifications which can command the confidence of the

community as a whole, for example by bringing forward the

timescale for change or removing some of the

preconditions for such change to take place.