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On the Election Committee, that its members should be elected fairly and openly in Hong Kong,
not selected; and that the arrangements for
elections which took place within the Election
Committee should themselves be open and fair. If
agreement could be reached on these principles, the British side would be willing to consider whether an Election Committee could be devised on
the basis of the composition and ratio set out in
Annex I of the Basic Law.
(Expand+ refer to Arren
On the functional constituencies, the electorates should be of substantial size. Experience had shown that corporate voting could lead to an individual having control over several votes in
functional constituencies. With very small electorates, there was a risk of corruption, of
which there had been a recent case in Hong Kong. The British side therefore proposed to maintain the gradual development of the existing 21 constituencies and would be willing to make proposals for 9 new constituencies taking account of Chinese ideas and based (as they had proposed)
on organisations.
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The Foreign Secretary also underlined that the whole purpose of holding the talks was to achieve continuity, and that it was therefore essential to reach agreement on objective criteria for the through train. It was agreed that both sides should make efforts to speed up the progress in the talks.
31. In rounds eight and nine, the British side fulfilled the Foreign Secretary's undertaking by putting forward revised proposals on the Election Committee and the functional
statememt26.8/BRIEFS/NJH
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