TNAG-2009-FCO40-2861-Hong-Kong-constitutional-development-Chief-Executive-1990 — Page 3

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From: Paul Fifoot

3rd January 1990

P/S Secretary of State

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1. The Governor goes to Beijing with virtually no cards in his hand to persuade the Chinese to increase the number of directly elected seats in the Legislature beyond the 18 which emerged from the Guangzhou meeting. Li Hou has said publically that there is no prospect of an increase in this number and, although there have been unofficial hints that this is not so, unofficial hints of this nature have not been reliable indicators in the past. There cannot be much hope that he will return from Beijing with agreement either to an immediate increase, or to a significant future increase, in the numbers.

2. Such a conclusion to the visit will be highly unpalatable in Hong Kong, and current thinking is that, if the Guangzhou solution is acquiesced in, it will have a deleterious effect on Britain's ability to govern the colony in the remaining years. One thought to counter this, is "unilaterally" to increase the numbers of directly elected members in the 1991 elections to 20 in the hope that the Chinese will ultimately accept it for 1997, this despite the indications from the highest level that a move of such a kind could put convergence at risk. (It is not clear whether that would mean scrapping the "through train" completely or whether there would be a lottery to decide on the removal of the excess members; indeed the Chinese probably do not know themselves). Not only would there be a risk of putting convergence at risk, but we would hazzard our chances of cooperation with the Chinese over an uncertain period in the immediate future when we will continue to need to do business with them, thus prolonging the period of non cooperation that succeeded the events of June last year.

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3. An alternative to trying to steal a march on the Chinese in this way would be, as I suggested last year, start bringing forward to the remaining colonial years, with necessary adaptations, the provisions of the Basic Law relating to the Chief Executive. This has four substantive advantages:

a). it provides an alternative political development for Hong Kong which would give as much, if not more, opportunity for "Hong Kong people ruling Hong Kong" as increase in the number of directly elected members;

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