TNAG-2449-FCO40-3565-Legislative-Council-of-Hong-Kong-1992 — Page 195

CODE 18.77

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CONFIDENTIAL

Reference

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MKB dz

Miss Saunders

LEGCO AND GREATER DEMOCRACY

1.

не

Thank you for copying to me your minute on this subject of 7 April, which I found very useful. You are quite right to remind us that you have already tried to identify the effects of our defying the Chinese on the number of directly-elected seats.

2. I note that your earlier paper understandably put the emphasis on the pre-1997 effects - Chinese non-co-operation, worse than anything we have seen so far, and loss of confidence. (In discussion with Mr Burns last week, the Governor also stressed the pre-1997 impact). However the paper did not really analyse the likely post-1997 effects, ie what would happen if the Chinese fulfilled their threats to undo previous arrangements, what is meant by derailing the through-train? As you will have seen from Mr Burns' recent minute, we heard in Hong Kong two possible specific results: disqualification of all 1995 LegCo members from the post-1997 legislature; and the setting up well before 1997 of a legislature-in-waiting. Mr Burns' minute also flagged up my thought about the problem of possible discontinuity in electoral legisation. Mr Ricketts has separately pointed out the risks of the Chinese trying to disrupt the 1995 elections; this bears further consideration.

3.

Paragraph 3 of your minute looks constructively at

some ways of improving the democratic legitimacy of the 1995 LegCo without deviating from the Basic Law provisions on composition. One other thing that I think we could do in this direction would be to ask HKG to make clearer before the next elections what degree of power the new LegCo would have (at least up to 1997) ie how HKG would deal with the directly-elected members (of your recent minute on a government party). Everyone agreed last year that the 1991 LegCo elections would change the Hong Kong political system significantly and make the government's task more difficult, but because of other preoccupations we did not analyse the situation and possible responses in much detail. The UDHK therefore won the high ground, at least internationally, in arguing for HKG to respect their democratic legitimacy and effectively to hand over the reins of power. There is a respectable argument to be made for gradualism, but debate has focused on the gradual increase in the number of elected seats rather than in the gradual increase of the influence of democratically elected politicians.

M.

N J Cox

WH 302 270 2650

10 April 1992

cc: Mr Ricketts

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CONFIDENTIAL

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