4
HKD
13 September 1991
Deari Stephen,
CONFIDENTIAL
HKC012/3
Hong Kong : Letter from
Foreign & Commonwealth Office
London SWIA 2AH
22
16/9
Mr M 4. Пахови olu
McKin
Thank you for your letter of 6 September about the Executive Council meeting in Hong Kong and enclosing copy of
letter of 5 September to the Prime Minister. We have consulted the Governor and recommend a short reply on the lines of the enclosed draft.
0.
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The background is that the Joint Declaration specifies a nationality qualification only for "heads of major government departments (corresponding to branches or departments at Secretary level) including the police department, and as deputy heads of some of those departments". But it does not rule out the imposition of other restrictions. After Tiananmen and as a protest at our Nationality scheme, at a late stage of the Basic Law drafting process the Chinese introduced into it more rigorous restrictions. Under these the senior officials mentioned above (and perhaps some others: the terminology is unclear) not only must be Chinese but must also have no right of abode overseas. The same restriction is applied to the Chief Justice, all members of ExCo and the bulk of LegCo. By this time (December 1989) our dialogue with the Chinese about the Basic law was concentrated on the number of directly-elected seats, but we did also take up the problem of LegCo members' right of abode and the Chinese raised the ceiling on those with right of abode from 15% to 20%.
1
The Basic Law was adopted and promulgated in April 1990. Unless there is radical political change in Peking the prospects for any amendment before 1997 are very slim ("impossible" in the words of the senior Chinese official concerned, Lu Ping). But we are already
CONFIDENTIAL
/committed
Redacted under FOI exemptions 27(1), 40(2) and 41.
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