TNAG-2713-FCO40-3919-Parliamentary-relations-draft-White-Paper-on-Representative--1993 — Page 50

If

On the Election Committee, that its members should be elected fairly and openly in Hong Kong, not selected; and that the arrangements for elections which took place within the Election

Committee should themselves be open and fair.

agreement could be reached on these principles,

the British side would be willing to consider

whether an Election Committee could be devised on

the basis of the composition and ratio set out in

Annex I of the Basic Law.

On the functional constituencies, the electorates

should be of substantial size. Experience had

shown that corporate voting could lead to an

individual having control over several votes in

functional constituencies. With very small

electorates, there was a risk of corruption, of which there had been a recent case in Hong Kong. The British side therefore proposed to maintain

the gradual development of the existing 21 constituencies. We would be looking very

carefully at the ideas the Chinese had put

forward in Round 6 and would be willing to

examine proposals which could meet the requirements of both sides.

The Foreign Secretary also underlined that the whole purpose of

holding the talks was to achieve continuity, and that it was

therefore essential to reach agreement on objective criteria

for the through train. The two sides agreed to make efforts to speed up the progress in the talks.

31. In rounds eight and nine, the British side fulfilled the

Foreign Secretary's undertaking by putting forward revised proposals on the Election Committee and the Functional

statement 26.8/BRIEFS/NJH

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