TNAG-2667-FCO40-3864-Hong-Kong-Civil-Service-1993 — Page 31

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those laws which are in contradiction with the BL, all the others remain unchanged. The judicial organ of the HK Government can operate as before. We hope that by 1997, there would not be any major turmoil in HK and everything will go on as it is now.

Now the question is that the new Governor does not take this into consideration If one does not consider convergence. there will be no premise. If JLG meetings are not based on the angle of convergence, there will be nothing to talk about. Therefore the question to be solved first is convergence. Having set the premise, and if the British side agrees on convergence, then we can enter into talks on concrete matters. Take for example air service agreements between HK and other countries. Although they are signed before 1997, we hope that these agreements will continue to be valid after 1997 and that no new agreement will need to be signed. Therefore the issue is raised at the JLG. If the agreements were to end on June 30, 1997, then there is no need for the JLG to discuss the matter and the British side could sign any agreement it deems fit. Therefore the biggest question and the most crucial issue at stake is the political system. This is also what has been mentioned in the Patten package. Mr Patten's package is one of complete non-convergence. It contains "three violations”, i.e., violation of the JD, the past agreements reached between China and Britain and the BL. His ideas cannot work

after 1997.

Yesterday Premier Li Peng in his meeting with CRC's Allen Lee said clearly that we could talk with the British on this issue, but the talks must be based on "three principles", i.e.. conformity with the JD, the Sino-British agreements and the BL. If the question of convergence is not considered at all, just as what some HK people have said that "convergence is the biggest enemy of HK", then what is the point in holding talks? You go your way and I go mine. Each goes his own way and there is nothing to talk about.

If the two sides begin talks on the basis of the "three principles", we hope to reach an agreement and that both sides will keep this agreement. This will not be a verbal agreement but will be a written one, otherwise after two days he will unilaterally tear up the agreement, just as the British side has done so after the foreign ministers of the two countries exchanged seven sets of correspondence. This is even more so for the JLG. In the JLG, there is no written agreement, at most there will only be minutes of meetings. Does this imply one can go back on one's promises more easily? Therefore, what the Chinese side and the British side are arguing now is not the question of democracy and not on whether there should be democratic development in HK. The question is whether promises should be kept. This is the most crucial question. If past agreements could be denied, then the same thing could happen to future discussions and future agreements. We of course want to speed