TNAG-2716-FCO40-3922-House-of-Commons-Select-Committee-on-Foreign-Affairs-enquiry-1993 — Page 38

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From The Minister of State

December 1992

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Dear Lord Shawcross,

I listened with close attention to your speech in our debate on Hong Kong on 9 December. I did not have time to deal as fully as I wished with the points you made in my closing remarks. I therefore wanted to let you have a detailed written response, including some of the points I made in the debate.

Your central point was that the Governor's proposals undermined the Joint Declaration and contravened the Basic Law. I must tell you that the Government are quite certain that this is not the case. You suggested that the proposals undermined the Joint Declaration because the document contained no word about increasing democracy. But you will see that paragraph 49 of the Joint Declaration says "the legislature of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region shall be constituted by elections". Given that the Legislative Council in 1984 (when the Joint Declaration was signed) was composed entirely of appointed members, this shows that the British and Chinese governments were agreed that the political system in Hong Kong should evolve from the all-appointed Legislative Council in 1984 to one that was "constituted by elections" by the time that the Special Administrative Region came into being in 1997. The Governor's proposals fit squarely into that process of evolution.

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You also said that the Governor's proposals contravened the Basic Law. facts do not bear this out. The Basic Law stipulates ("Decision of the National People's Congress on the Formation of the First Government and the First Legislative Council of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region", para 6) that the First Legislative Council of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region in 1997 shall be composed of 60 members: 20 returned by geographical constituencies through direct elections, 10 returned by an Election Committee, and 30 returned by functional constituencies. The Basic Law does not spell out the detailed electoral arrangements which should apply.

/The Legislative Council to be elected in 1995

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