TNAG-2708-FCO40-3914-House-of-Commons-Select-Committee-on-Foreign-Affairs-and-Par-1993 — Page 117

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RECE

IN O

January 1993

The Rt Hon Lord Shawcross GBC QC

60 Victoria Embankment

London EC4Y OJP

Mrs aft

14 JA* 1992

Ps/ Baroness Chalker

(Intended to round

off the Correspondence)

tichetta 13/

Thank you for your letter of 18 December about Hong Kong.

I agree with you that our present problems with the Chinese do not rest on narrow legal points. That said, I accept of course Pliny's maxim. The point I was seeking to make was that the Governor and his experts in Hong Kong, and we here, had very much in mind in drafting his proposals the terms of the Joint Declaration, the Basic Law and our previous discussions with the Chinese side. In our view, these

proposals are consistent with what is said in those documents.

The point I was making on the Election Committee (what you refer to as the "elite" committee) is that there has never before been such a committee in Hong Kong. The first one ever needs to be constituted for the purpose of electing ten members of the 1995 Legislative Council. I set out in my earlier letter our reasons for believing that the Basic Law does not lay down the composition of this Election Committee. The Governor therefore had to make proposals.

More generally, let me reassure you that the Joint Declaration continues to underpin the policy of this Government and of the Governor. We will have to agree to differ on whether we should have embarked on a long process of private consultations with the Chinese before making public the

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