TNAG-2032-FCO40-2895-Visit-by-Douglas-Hurd--Secretary-of-State-for-Foreign-and-Co-1990 — Page 81

FROM

FOREIGN KEG:

SPURCH

18-

HONG KONG GENERAL CHAMBER OF COMMERCI 15 JANUARY 1990

FOREIGN SECRETARY:

What we are faced with as a British Government facing our

responsibilities, which I tried to outline in what I have just said,

a system is the need to try and find a system which will continue, which will start, as I have said, at a higher level of democratic involvement than was planned in our White Paper two years ago, which

It will clearly start higher talked of 10 seats initially in 1991.

than that because the demand, the aspiration, is bigher and more

insistent than it used to ha.

The first prize the best prize would be to devise a

system which started higher than that 10 and which everybody could sce I mean particularly the people who are being induced and

persuaded to take part in the process continue and progress and not come to some abrupt halt in 1997,

that it was going to

That is the first prize, that is the beat prize, that is what we are seeking and that is what if we can achieve, we will achieve. lf not, then we will have, as I have said, to make the best judgement we can of the long-term interest of Hong Kong.

the

We are

So that is the aim and the reasons for that

considerations which go into that: I think are very clear. pot interested, as I said, in some debating watch as to who is more democratic than anybody else or some short-term political gain.

It

is a matter of trying to start on a path which will actually enduro. I say "trying" because the discussion is not complete and that 18 why I bave said we will make up our own minds and make our own

decisions

hope within weeks.

F. 19