Ангаг
Jint fax
Lo Mr Llewelyn
Mary Karp,
Mr Greenwood
34
HK B
135)
Mr Rickey Wits Sherr 2/12
Yn
FAl Fit
ра
(Kays)
C412
Jaiz
Элек Podneth Yve.
UKB 0111612
LORD HOWE'S APPEARANCE BEFORE THE FAC, 1 DECEMBER 1993
1. I sat in on Lord Howe's appearance before the FAC this morning. Lord Howe gave evidence for just over an hour. Three quarters of this was devoted to human rights in China and (possibly 5 minutes) Tibet. Of the remaining 15-20 minutes, about half was devoted to the maintenance of human rights in China after 1997. The last part of the examination concentrated on current developments in Hong Kong and the Governor's plans for constitutional development.
2. PRU will be sending us the transcript as soon as it appears, so I will not go over the entire contents of the session. However, there are one or two points that are worth highlighting ahead of the Secretary of State's appearance before the Committee in January.
3. In his opening statement, Lord Howe drew attention to his view of how the 1984 Joint Declaration worked. Hong Kong. expected its way of life to be protected. That was reasonable. But the concept of One Country, Two Systems should be seen as a two-way process and it was reasonable for Hong Kong not to see itself as a bridgehead for forcing change in the mainland.
4.
Asked whether we were making progress on human rights in China, Lord Howe attempted to set the process in perspective. He spoke on China's 4,000 years of Imperial history. We should respect China's civilisation and its sense of pride. Confrontation would not help. We should use what levers we had available to open and sustain dialogue, but we should not be disappointed when there was no obvious success and should keep at it. There was no telling where the seed might fall.
5. In this context, the Committee had clearly decided before the meeting on the their approach and there were a number of comparisons with the way in which HMG and other western countries approached the USSR and the lead up to the Helsinki Final Act. Lord Howe said that he found such a comparison "wholly inappropriate".
6. Lord Howe's general position was that progress was being made in so far as the Chinese were willing to talk about human rights and had found themselves obliged to issue White Papers discussing human rights. He thought that the fact that they had recognised the "legitimacy" of such a dialogue and were using the same language that the west used in discussions on the issue was an indication that we had gained a foothold. They had been drawn on to our debating
No comments yet.
Private notes are available after approval.