BLDC, provided the explanation in introducing the draft Basic Law at the Meeting of the NPC at which it was adopted, in the following terms: "Taking into account that our Government has undertaken in the Sino-British Joint Declaration to provide in the Basic Law the basic policies of our country regarding Hong Kong and the elaboration of the above basic policies set out in Annex I of the Sino-British Joint Declaration, and that various sectors in Hong Kong are rather anxious to reflect and safeguard in the Basic Law their individual interests, provisions of policy nature are, after all, retained even though different opinions on how detailed such provisions should be arise in the drafting procedures"!
46. With very limited exceptions, these expressions of additional policies are of limited significance since they provide for the SAR to formulate policies" on its own" and are, in effect, an expression of powers which might reasonably be deduced from the general power of administration and the absence of any relevant restrictions in Chapters I and II of the Basic Law. The exceptions are the obligation of the SAR to formulate policies to develop Western and Chinese medicine, to maintain the previous policy of making subventions for non-governmental organisations and to formulate its social welfare policies on the basis of the previous welfare system. These do constitute restrictions on the SAR and put a limit in the areas where they apply to the high degree of autonomy it is to enjoy; but there is nothing in the Joint Declaration which bears on those areas. Unlike the economic policies referred to above, they do not contravene the Joint Declaration.
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