TNAG-2790-FCO40-4029-Future-of-Hong-Kong-1993 — Page 42

The Implementation of the Sino-British Joint Declaration

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plenary meetings of the JLG held between March 1990 and June 1992 (the last to be held before Chris Patten replaced Lord Wilson as Governor of Hong Kong) to suggest that the British government had responded at the speed and in the way hoped for by the FAC. Nor do the annual reports laid before Parliament for 1990 and 1991 indicate a new initative. On the contrary, it seems that the diplomatic stint on the Hong Kong front, three years on from the trauma of 4 June 1989, was much the same as before. The same tired team of decent British chaps wilting under the relentless pressure of their tough Chinese counterparts, getting nowhere and having to give in on such fundamental issues as the Memorandum of Understanding Con~~ ceming the Construction of the New Airport in Hong Kong and Related Questions (dealt with by Margaret Ng in the 1991 report in this series) and the setting up of a Court of Final Appeal in Hong Kong before 1997 (covered by Frank Ching in the 1992 report). The outcome in the first case was a codicil to the Joint Declaration that turns it into the last in a long line of "unequal" treaties but the first to be decisively to China's advantage. It is now being used by Beijing to get a stranglehold over the Hong Kong govemment in the last few years of British administration. In the second case the agreed decision of the JLG was a bilateral contravention of the Joint Declaration and the Basic Law.

☐ Mission of the International Commission of Jurists

If these unfavourable impressions of the performance of the Chinese, British and Hong Kong governments in carrying out their prescribed responsibilities under the Joint Declaration are thought to lack objectivity, the reader should take note of the summary of the conclusions and recom- mendations of the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) in the Appen- dix to this chapter. The ICJ is the first independent body to conduct a formal inquiry into the implementation of the Joint Declaration and visited Hong Kong in April 1991 to receive written and oral evidence. Its views on the crucial question of whether the Basic Law of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region correctly reflects the spirit and letter of the Joint Declaration are as follows:

It is therefore our conclusion that the Basic Law is inconsistent, in twelve respects, with the obligations which the PRC accepted by its signature and ratification of the Joint Declaration. Having regard to the number and importance of these inconsis- tencies, the Basic Law has to be seen as a deliberate attempt by the PRC to renege on its obligations. To take only the most important points, Hong Kong will not,

8.