TNAG-2711-FCO40-3917-House-of-Commons-Select-Committee-on-Foreign-Affairs-and-Par-1993 — Page 148

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REGISTRY Action Taken

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From The Minister of State

6 October 1993

Dew Colleague.

I

I know that you take an interest in Hong Kong affairs. therefore wanted to let you have straight away a copy of the Governor's annual address to the Legislative Council in Hong Kong, which he delivered today.

This speech, like last year's, is wide-ranging and contains new initiatives in many fields. But I think you will want to know in particular what Chris Patten has to say about relations with China over Hong Kong.

We have now been in negotiation with China over electoral arrangements in Hong Kong since April. The debate is not about the pace of democracy in Hong Kong. That was established in the Basic Law and could only be changed if the Basic Law itself was changed. The argument turns on whether the agreed steps towards democracy will give the people of Hong Kong a real opportunity to choose and on whether those steps are credible or not. We have had two main objectives;

that election arrangements in Hong Kong should be fair, open and acceptable to the people of Hong Kong;

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that there should be objective criteria for the "through train" so that those who wish to run for election to the Legislative Council in 1995, as well as those who vote for them, know before they do so what the rules of the game will be.

We have agreed with the Chinese side that the content of the talks should be confidential. Chris Patten has been careful not to breach that understanding. But he took the view, with our support, that it was right for Hong Kong people to know the approach we have been taking in the talks and the status of the proposals he announced last year. He therefore explains in his speech that in an effort to meet Chinese concerns, we have put forward revised proposals in the talks on the functional constituencies and election committee. These represent a major move. They show that we are serious in seeking to make a success of the talks. The revised proposals are of course consistent with the proposals I set out above. We would be prepared to commend them to the Legislative Council provided that they formed part of a satisfactory overall agreement including acceptable arrangements for the "through train".