TNAG-2733-FCO40-3939-Future-of-Hong-Kong-constitutional-development-1993 — Page 100

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Mr Ricketts HKD

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From: R F Wye

Far Eastern Section Research & Analysis Dept OAB 2/125 210 6219/6216

Date: 1 September 1993

TALKS ON CONSTITUTIONAL ISSUES: POSSIBLE WORKING GROUP

1. You have mentioned the possibility that we might reach a stage in the negotiations with the Chinese over constitutional development in Hong Kong where we hammered out the details of an agreement in a working group. You are aware that the precedent for this was the Joint Declaration negotiations.

2.

Should we reach that stage, you and others involved might find the attached draft note which summarises the experience of the working group in 1984 of interest. It bears no indication of authorship, but I presume it was written by Lord Wilson, who the head of the British team in the JD working group.

3.

There are some similarities. The working paper negotiations built on working papers on various aspects of Hong Kong handed to the Chinese earlier in the course of the JD negotiating process and the (minimal) Chinese responses to them. The paper describes these as the bricks (para 4) on which the negotiation was built. We have now put forward pretty detailed proposals on the main aspects of the constitutional development package. The Chinese have some difficulty in accepting parts of it (eg their rejection in total of the Governor's original proposals). But there is material there on which to work and there have been some counter proposals from the Chinese.

4.

But there are also significant differences. Firstly there is the question of deadlines. In the JD negotiations it was the Chinese who set the September 1984 deadline (and we for all practical purposes accepted it) - although it emerged subsequently that the Chinese may not have been quite as serious about the deadline as it appeared at the time. This time the Chinese have not accepted any of the deadlines we have come with in the course of the negotiations (the fiascos in March) and have stated quite clearly that they do not intend to negotiate under the pressure of deadlines. The point is that whatever the deadlines may be (and we have, in deference to Chinese views, been careful not to make them explicit for the moment), the attitude of the Chinese is likely to be quite different. In 1984 they were prepared to work hard to meet the September deadline, this time around they are likely to be significantly less keen to cooperate. Nor will they feel the pressure of their own deadlines which worked to our advantage on occasion.

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