28 April 1993
Foreign & Commonwealth
Office
London SW1A 2AH
From The Secretary of State
Dear Robert.
Thank you for your letter of 14 April about our
negotiations with the Chinese over Hong Kong.
I agree that we should not indulge in semantic debate,
but there is one point which I would wish to make.
In your letter you repeatedly suggest that we have broken with the 'agreed procedure' for reaching an agreement with the Chinese.
This is not so. The Joint Declaration commits the two
Governments to cooperating during the transition period before
1997. It establishes the Joint Liaison Group as one means of
doing this, but it is not the only way it can be done.
past we have used a variety of mechanisms including
discussions between the Governor of Hong Kong and his Chinese opposite number.
In the
The Governor's speech to Legco on 7 October was not an attempt to by-pass discussions with the Chinese. Quite the
opposite. Chris Patten specifically said that such
discussions were necessary. He made clear that his proposals
were just that: the Chinese should put forward their own
ideas. But Chris felt it right to inform the people of
Hong Kong what it was he hoped to achieve. I am pleased that those discussions are now underway. We intend them to
succeed.
Robert Adley Esq MP
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