TNAG-2734-FCO40-3942-Hong-Kong-role-of-the-Legislative-Council-(LEGCO)-1993 — Page 149

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while making clear to

to the Chinese side that such postponement could not be carried forward indefinitely and that talks would need to get off to an early start as there was a practical need to press ahead with the legislation. On February 16 we proposed that the 2 sides should announce a starting date for the talks of 24 February and told the Chinese of the composition of our negotiating team, which is naturally a matter for us to decide. We said that it would be headed by Sir Robin McLaren, the British

Ambassador in Peking, and would include Michael Sze,

Secretary for Constitutional Affairs, William Ehrman, the

Political Adviser, Peter Lai, the Deputy Secretary for Constitutional Affairs and Peter Ricketts, Head of the Hong Kong Department in the Foreign and Commonwealth office.

5.

the

Despite repeated requests from

from the British Embassy since 16 February for a response from the

the Chinese side, we

received no response until 1 March apart from being told on several occasions that a reply would be given in the near future. In the absence of a Chinese reply, we delayed gazettal for the second time on 19 February. We had indicated publicly on numerous occasions that the end of February was our latest target for gazetting the Bill, and as this point approached we once again asked the Chinese side for a response. When none arrived we debated within the Government whether we should proceed with gazettal on Friday February 26. But once again for the third time we decided that we should allow every possible opportunity for the Chinese side to respond. We felt that the community

would expect us to go that extra mile in an effort to secure productive talks with the Chinese Government.

6.

-

On 1 March we finally received a reply to our message of 16 February from the Chinese side, but once again the Chinese side failed to agree to a starting date. Sir Robin McLaren replied to the Chinese side on 2 March repeating that we ready for talks to proceed on the basis of the Joint Declaration, the Basic Law and the exchange of correspondence between the two

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were