TNAG-2707-FCO40-3913-Hong-Kong-political-parties-Cooperative-Resources-Centre-(CR-1993 — Page 48

SECRET

HKD 9

MAMB 0414

RECL

15 JAM 1070

Foreign & Commonwealth

GISTRY

Office

London SW1A 2AH

18

January 1993

Jean Stephen,

Hong Kong:

Ном

Zaduth

Call on the Prime Minister by

Mr Allen Lee's Delegation

The Prime Minister is seeing Mr Allen Lee and a group from his Cooperative Resources Centre on 19 January. The Cooperative Resources Centre have 17 members of LegCo.

I enclose brief notes on the delegation. All are members of the Legislative Council. Mr Lee and Mrs Selina Chow were prominent members of ExCo until the Governor removed all members of LegCo from ExCo in October.

Last year, the Cooperative Resources Centre began to move away from their traditional support for the Hong Kong Government towards support for Peking. Since their removal from ExCo the Cooperative Resources Centre have become openly critical of the Governor and his constitutional proposals. Two years ago, Allen Lee was advocating more democracy for Hong Kong. Now he gives priority to convergence with China. The Cooperative Resources Centre have voted against the Hong Kong Government over the airport and in preliminary debates on the constitutional proposals before Christmas. They abstained on a motion on 13 January calling on the Governor to withdraw his constitutional proposals (the motion was soundly defeated). They have made frequent visits to Peking and plan to call on Premier Li Peng after their visit to the UK. We

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