TNAG-1886-FCO40-2677-Overseas-visits-by-Sir-David-Wilson--Governor-of-Hong-Kong---1989 — Page 16

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 the status quo. The draft as it now stands embodies a position which leans 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. indications that the Chinese recognise that the

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proposals as they stand may give too much weight to more conservative opinion in Hong Kong.