SECURITY CLASSIFICATION
Top Secret
Secret
Confidential
Restricted
Unclassified
PRIVACY MARKING
In Confidence
DSR 11C (Revised 5/87)
in terms of our ability to maintain our authority in Hong
Kong, simply to fall in line with what the Chinese want.
I believe that it is important for Hong Kong that the
decisions we take before 1997 in areas which are our
responsibility should be seen to be ours and ours alone.
At the same time we must take full account of what is in
Hong Kong's long term interest. This means doing all we
can in the years before 1997 to entrench a democratic
system in Hong Kong which meets the aspirations of the
community. We want that system, or at least its main
elements, to continue after 1997. Hence the great
importance of the Basic Law, which will be finalised with
the next 3 months. Once the Basic Law has been enacted
by the National People's Congress it will be set in
concrete.
The present position on the drafting of the Basic
Law is that the relevant special groups of the Basic Law
Drafting Committee met in December and produced a revised
draft. As far as the political section of the draft is
concerned, the latest draft is an improvement in that it
provides for 18, rather than 15, directly elected seats
in 1997. But it is also a step backwards in that further
development in the 10 years after 1997 has now been ruled
out. The special groups meet again on 17 January to
consider the draft, which will be put to a plenary
meeting of the BLDC in February and then to the National
People's Congress in late March.
Against this background, the Governor's specific
No comments yet.
Private notes are available after approval.