pa
p.r. Constit Dyst
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TO IMMEDIATE HONG KONG
TELNO 84
OF 291226Z JANUARY 93
INFO IMMEDIATE PEKING, UKREP JLG HONG KONG, TOKYO
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MDHOAN 8123
47
PERSONAL FOR GOVERNOR FROM RICKETTS, HKD
TOKYO FOR HUM CAUSS) VISITING
HONG KONG:
EXCO DISCUSSION ON CONSTITUTIONAL DEVELOPMENT
1.
We were grateful to Michael Sze for Letting us have an advance sight of the ExCo memorandum for discussion on 2 February on the electoral legislation. This could clearly be the decisive discussion on whether to amend your proposals before they are tabled (I have sent separately some working level thoughts on the options for change to the Election Committee, should ExCo decide to go down that route).
2.
It occurred to us that there is one angle not at present covered in the ExCo paper which you might think was worth considering in ExCo. That is the
That is the likely Chinese reaction to a decision to table legislation without amendment.
3. We note that Lu Ping has not yet responded to Sir R McLaren's approach of 14 January (Peking telno 43). Chen Ziying said on that occasion that the British side should not take any unfavourable actions which might further complicate the situation before Lu Ping gave his reply. Although a bit obscure, we he meant that your proposals should not be tabled before we had received Lu Ping's reply. That raises two questions:
- Would the act of tabling Legislation itself be the trigger for further Chinese measures against Hong Kong, eg announcing a decision to set up a separate stove? Or would the Chinese keep such further measures in reserve until the outcome of the LegCo debate?
- Would the tabling of unamended Legislation significantly reduce prospects of the Chinese agreeing to discussions? It is possible that they are now resigned to your proposals being tabled without
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