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in order to inculcate a sense of responsibility and a responsiveness to the legislature, it would be as well to limit the term of office so that there was a further election in 1994 or 1995. There may well be some reluctance to assume the office of proto-chief executive on the grounds that it is likely to exclude the holder from further office after 1997, but there would be such an interest in making the system work under what may assumed to be a
more favourable British regime with its opportunities for setting useful precedents that this should not prevent the emergence of a suitable candidate.
The Basic Law framework and convergence
7. The draft Basic Law makes provision for the discharge by the Chief Executive of any function which we might wish to confer immediately or subsequently on a proto-chief executive. There should, therefore, be no cause for concern that the functions of the forerunner would exceed those of the successor. The draft NPC decision for the first government does not give any details of the way in which the election committee is to be constituted or how it is to work, so there is no conflict between what is proposed above and the draft decision. But it would not matter if there were a conflict. There has never been any question of convergence between the Chief Executive and whatever forerunner there is, be he Governor, Deputy Governor or anyone else.
The Chief Executive is to be new, and is to emerge from a new NPC machinery. Such continuing advantage as may be obtained from a scheme such as this does not lie in a continuity or carry over of an individual or a particular machinery, but in the fact that a similar kind of machinery for similar purposes has been practised and its experience can be drawn on. It would be a bonus if the machinery for election for the proto-chief executive were such as to shame the Chinese into adopting something similar or if the governmental practices which had grown up under such a scheme before 1997 were to influence subsequent practice.
Our interest in devolution
8. As 1997 comes nearer it is likely that the Governor's authority and influence will wane. It will therefore be in the interest of good government that responsibility should pass to the political interests from which the succession will emerge. It will also be in British interests that the responsibility for further unpalatable decisions is taken by those interests. We, therefore, have an interest in devolution of as many responsibilities for individual decision making as hive off apart from the advantage in this scheme as an alternative form of political development in present circumstances. But of course, devolution in this way will not deprive us of our overall resposibility. Apart from anything else, the Chinese will hold us to JD 30!
Tactical considerations
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