TNAG-2450-FCO40-3567-Future-of-Hong-Kong-constitutional-development-1992 — Page 106

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from reactions in Hong Kong. The Governor will sell his

proposals vigorously in Hong Kong after his LegCo speech, and will do an extensive lobbying round during his visit here in

November.

The Chinese will find a number of the proposals very hard to swallow. We are committed to consulting them on the

arrangements for the 1995 elections (this was part of the deal whereby the Chinese agreed to include the through train

concept in the Basic Law). We do not regard ourselves as committed to reaching agreement with them on all aspects (although the Chinese will claim that we are). It will almost certainly be impossible to agree a number of the proposals with the Chinese: the functional constituencies and election

committee will be particularly difficult. We must at all costs avoid being sucked into an endless negotiation, and in practice we shall not be able to water down the proposals once

the Governor has announced them. We should therefore tell the

Chinese that we are prepared to discuss our ideas seriously with them, but that if proper arrangements are to be made for the 1995 elections (and the 1994 District Board elections which are part of the same sequence) it will be necessary to draw the discussions to a close by next spring by the latest; and that if agreement has not been reached by then, we shall need to make our own dispositions and face the possibility of a change in 1997.

It is hard to predict the Chinese reaction to the Governor's

package. They will almost certainly take a hostile line at

first. If it becomes necessary to go ahead without their

agreement, the Chinese might (at best) reserve their

position, while waiting to see how LegCo operated in practice between 1995 and 1997. At worst, they could say that no-one elected in 1995 would be allowed to serve on LegCo from 1997, and/or start to make public preparations for electing a new

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