TNAG-2195-FCO40-3132-Hong-Kong-nationality-package-1990 — Page 231

Reference........

Question 7: What if China did not honour foreign passports?

Answer 7: The Chinese had not been saying that. They had said that

certain top jobs would be reserved for Chinese nationals - we had always known this would be the case: it was up to Hong Kong people to choose. The Chinese had also restricted Legislative Council membership to 20% foreign nationals. And their position on consular protection was not yet clear. However, the main purpose of giving the passports was to enable people to come to the UK if they had to the Chinese had said nothing about preventing freedom of travel and this would be contrary to the Joint Declaration.

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democacy.

The call also covered two non-nationality points. I would suggest passages in the letter to cover these as follows:

3.

CODE 18-77

IS

"We remain convinced that the Joint Declaration is the right

basis for Hong Kong's future and are committed to making it

work. Drafting had now been completed on the Basic Law of the

Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, which was a stipulation

of the basic policies of the People's Republic of China towards

Hong Kong as set out in the Joint Declaration. The provisions

in the Basic Law concerning the future political structure have

aroused particular interest in Hong Kong and elsewhere. Our aim has always been to establish in Hong Kong a system of government

which includes a substantial element of democracy and which can

endure and develop after 1997. As I said in my statement in the

House of Commons on 16 February, I believe that the arrangements

set out in the Basic Law and our decision about the introduction

of direct elections to the legislature in 1991, taken together, make good sense for Hong Kong. They provide for a continuous

upward slope in the development of democracy from 18 seats in

1991 to 30 seats in 2003, with the possibility that full direct elections could be introduced in 2007. This rate of progress is

not as rapid as many people in Hong Kong, or we ourselves, would have liked to see. But, in their statement of 16 February, OMELCO themselves welcomed the removal of a major uncertainty

for the territory's future and stressed the importance of making

a success of the 1991 elections. We have deliberately not fixed

a figure for 1995. We have said that it will not be below 20.