TNAG-2767-FCO40-3984-Hong-Kong-and-the-media-interviews--press-briefings-and-the--1993 — Page 26

I very much hope that the argument we are having with China

at the moment will be resolved. But it is important for us

all to be clear what it is about. It is not as is often

reported about democracy. My proposals, I am sorry to say,

do not amount to anything you or I would recognise as

democracy. When I explained them to the Australian Foreign

Minister the other day, he remarked that they sounded to him

like two-fifths of five-eighths of democracy. And he was

right.

The argument really boils down to whether the arrangements

for the 1995 elections in Hong Kong the last under British

-

administration - will be conducted cleanly, openly and

fairly, or whether the elections will be rigged to produce a

rubber-stamp legislature which China would find compliant

rather than troublesome.

-

I strongly believe that a credible legislature not

necessarily wholly directly -elected - but at least arrived

at cleanly, fairly and openly, and not cooked to be

acceptable to one particular party or another is

fundamental to the rule of law. The same is true of freedom

of speech. Legislators and journalists fearlessly asking awkward questions - tiresome though that sometimes is for

those in positions of authority are the essential

attributes of a free society, in Hong Kong as they are here.

Last October I put foreword some proposals on how Hong Kong's

final elections under British sovereignty might be arranged.

These were not matters that had previously been agreed with

China, but matters which were outstanding and which needed

and still need to be resolved so that the elections can

take place. I stressed at the time that these were genuinely proposals and that I was willing to discuss them with the Chinese Government. I remain willing to do so, without

preconditions.

sundayexpress.art JM PERS

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