TNAG-2456-FCO40-3577-Future-of-Hong-Kong-constitutional-development-presentation-1992 — Page 47

By Fax

9 October 1992

Secretary of State's Article for the Sunday Times:

11 October

Thank you for your fax inviting comments on your draft article.

I thought it was spot on, and had only a few comments, which are these:

Para 7: it might be slightly safer to stick more closely to the precise wording of the Governor's speech. Could I suggest a re-casting of your first and second sentences as follows:

"Increasing directly-elected seats in 1995 is not the only way of building up democracy in Hong Kong. We need to look in parallel at how to develop Hong Kong's representative institutions to the maximum extent within the terms of the Joint Declaration and the Basic Law. Chris Patten has set out proposals in his speech which do just this."

Para 7: fourth line from the bottom: I suggest adding "members of the" before "Election Committee".

Para 8: the Governor has been making the point in your final sentence slightly more strongly. How about this?:

"But the Governor could hardly have gone to Peking to negotiate about his proposals for the 1995 elections, while keeping the people of Hong Kong in the dark about what they were. People in Hong Kong do, after all, also have a right to express their views on their own electoral system."