TNAG-2731-FCO40-3937-Future-of-Hong-Kong-constitutional-development-1993 — Page 191

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points, it seems to us, depend crucially on Hong Kong judgments. The essential reason for running these risks, if it was felt this

was a tenable course of action in Hong Kong terms, would be to

signal to China our readiness to move in the direction of concerns with which China is identified and hence increase the

chance that the Chinese would be willing to acquiesce in the

eventual package, either explicitly or tacitly.

4. On this basis the crucial test for alternative proposals is

whether they can be presented as moving closer to the model in the Basic Law for the 1999 Election Committee, while still being

consistent with the 5 principles and producing a fair and open

election.

5.

This is a tall order. But our judgement is that only a variant of option (a) in the ExCo memorandum really meets this test. Options (b) and (c) bear little relationship to the BL

model. Option (d) has attractions but goes beyond the BL by

dividing up the entire working population into occupational groups rather than following the BL's stipulation that members of the Election Committee will be returned by organisations and corporate bodies. For that reason, I agree with Lady Dunn's comment in ExCo that it moves in the opposite direction from that

in which China wants to go.

6.

Option (a) lacks the simplicity and clarity of the Governor's proposal. But it does offer a method of electing members of the

Election Committee without the need for a wholly separate set of elections for this purpose. Functional constituency electors would simply be electing members of the Election Committee as well as their functional constituency representative, rather like

US electors vote for a Senator and a Mayor on the same ballot.

[tr.sze22.jyl

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