TNAG-2448-FCO40-3564-Elections-in-Hong-Kong-Basic-Law-1992 — Page 30

28-OCT-1992 17:16

A.G.'S CHAMBERS

+852 877 2130

P.03

Summary

officials

have claimed

that

exchanges

Chinese

between Britain and China

early 1990 added up to an understanding about electoral arrangements in Hong Kong.

TO set the record straight, we have decided to the relevant messages. The Chinese

These documents show that :

release the texts of

side have been informed.

we

There was по agreement or understanding between the UK and China on the electoral arrangements for 1995 in Hong Kong we made clear repeatedly our dissatisfaction at the Chinese proposals for the

number

Of directly-elected

seats

to

in

in the Legislative Council; and that we intended continue to press for a faster rate of increase the number of these seats.

At the end of these exchanges, the question of electoral

in Hong Kong up to 1997

arrangements

remained open.

This was the broader context for the discussion of the composition of the Election Committee which, under the Basic Law, would elect 18 members of the Legislative Council. The final version of the Basic Law was not satisfactory, on this point because it did not spell out as had asked the five principles agreed between the two sides as a framework for an Election Committee system. Nor did it make clear the composition of the Election Committee for the Legislature in 1997.

What it did make clear, however, was that the Election Committee for the first SAR Legislature would explicitly not be the Election Committee 1999, the composition of which was set out in the Basic

for

Law.

Since there was no agreement with China on the composition of the Election Committee, the Governor had no alternative but to make proposals of his own consistent with the five principles.

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A.G.'S CHAMBERS