TNAG-2598-FCO40-3786-Appointment-of-Chris-Patten-as-new-Governor-of-Hong-Kong--Ap-1992 — Page 32

OR

The United Reformed Church

86 Tavistock Place London WC1H 9RT

General Secretary and Clerk of the General Assembly :

Telephone

071-916 2020 Fax number 071-916 2021 The Revd Bernard G Thorogood MA

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7. HICA

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The Rt Hon Douglas Hurd, PC, P, Foreign & Commonwealth Office, London SW1A 24H.

Dear Mr Hurd,

الهامة

from it. Goodlad by 15/0

Marvel 16/6

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4 June 1992

Ps

PS1Mr. Goodlad

During the next five years many people in the churches will be maintaining a critical interest in the British relationship with Hong Kong and with the People's Republic of China as the date of hand-over draws near. We realise that there are very big issues at stake. You will have a global concern and will no doubt see the improvement of relations with the People's Republic as very important for the longer term stability of Asia. I think those of us in the churches will give first place to the welfare of the 5.6 million people of Hong Kong for whom this country has an inescapable responsibility. To balance those two interests will always be difficult and we wish you, and Mr Patten, well as you guide HMG in the coming years. I hope that it will prove possible for an ecumenical group to meet with Mr Patten before he takes office in Hong Kong. I know that the Archbishop of York has requested such a meeting.

Hay I urge you to consider the following two particular areas of

concern.

Garzal

The first is the process towards democratic government in Hong Kong. It is very hard to understand your extreme reluctance to move more quickly, when every other situation of colonial territories has shown HMG eager to press towards democratic elections. In Hong Kong there is a very literate and responsible electorate. The only reasons for denying them full voting rights are that the government of the People's Republic do not wish this to happen or that the leaders of big business in Hong Kong do not wish it to happen. Those are powerful voices. But are they enough to over rule the legitimate aspirations of ordinary people who wish to have a voice in the decisions which shape their lives? The current reluctance of HMG to move more rapidly is strangely at odds with the political philosophy which we have always understood you to uphold. If, in 1997, the government of China, as it is then comprised, should decide to annul the democratic government of Hong Kong, then the world community will know who stands in the dock. It is surely hard for you to press on the government in Beijing the case for human rights when Britain maintains in Hong Kong a regime that appears, on the historical map, to belong to the 1950's.