Council.
If we had accepted the Chinese position and introduced legislation to apply this voting method to the District Boards and Municipal Councils
only, we run a strong risk that the Council would
extend the measure to apply to the elections to their own body. That would lead straight back to
further difficulties with the Chinese Government.
We would not have saved time: we would have wasted
it.
Despite our best efforts, it has not been possible to reach agreement on this issue. The question of abolishing appointed members also remains unsolved. Time has now run out for pursuing these points.
It is necessary to introduce legislation on them into the Legislative Council before their Christmas recess. That will allow work to begin straight away in a Bills Committee. The Governor has therefore announced that he will publish draft legislation on 10 December for introduction on 15
December.
These proposals are largely uncontroversial in Hong Kong.
We had thought that they were uncontroversial with China. On a number of them it was possible to reach a common view in the talks. In those cases, the legislation will reflect
that.
We have emphasised to the Chinese side that we are not breaking off the talks. We have proposed a further Round in
December to pursue agreement on the remaining issues. are prepared to work seriously and constructively to that
end. We strongly hope that the talks will continue.
We
oralstatement25.11/BRIEFS/NJH
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