4.30 pm
Hong Kong
Hong Kong
15 MARCH 1993
The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr. Douglas Hurd): With permission, Madam Speaker. I should like to make a statement about political development in Hong Kong.
There is widespread support in the House and elsewhere for the proposals put forward by the Governor last October. We sought to respond to the wish of the Hong Kong people for a greater say in their own affairs while staying within the terms of the Sino-British joint declaration, the Basic Law and other relevant exchanges with the Chinese side.
The Governor's proposals represent our judgment of the right way forward for Hong Kong, but we have said from the start that we are open to alternative ideas, from the people of Hong Kong or from the Chinese side. We have had a wide range of suggestions from people in Hong Kong. The Chinese side have opposed the proposals without offering anything in their place. Since last October, we and the Governor have been urging the Chinese side to discuss these electoral issues with us in order to reach an understanding. We are ready to enter such discussions without preconditions. We want to see as much continuity as possible in Hong Kong's electoral arrangements before and after 1997.
Some two months ago, we renewed our efforts to get talks under way with China, and since then, there have been intensive diplomatic contacts in Peking. It may be useful for the House if I set out briefly the basis on which we were prepared to hold discussions.
First, we accepted that the talks should be on the basis of the joint declaration—which I have mentioned—the principle of convergence with the Basic Law and the relevant understandings and agreements reached between Britain and China. The Governor's proposals are wholly compatible with those.
Second, as I made plain to the House on 10 March, we told the Chinese side that the British team in these discussions would include representatives of the Hong Kong Government on the same basis as other officials taking part in the talks. Hong Kong officials have joined over the past 10 years in discussions with the Chinese side as members of the British team, including during the negotiations on the joint declaration and later as members of the Joint Liaison Group. We cannot and do not accept what some Chinese officials have said in the past few days —that the role of people from Hong Kong in discussions about Hong Kong's future should be downgraded.
We received a positive response on the principle of talks from the Chinese side in early February. To help get the talks started, we and the Governor therefore decided, with the advice of the Executive Council in Hong Kong, to postpone the original plan to publish the draft electoral legislation in Hong Kong's Official Gazette on 12 February. As the diplomatic contacts proceeded, we held up publication for four further weeks; but we told the Chinese that it was not possible to delay indefinitely, given the need to pass legislation before the Legislative Council rose for its summer recess in July.
It is disappointing that, despite all those efforts, the Chinese side were still not able to agree by 12 March to a date for talks or even to a date on which an announcement of talks could be made. As we had
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forewarned them, the Governor therefore published his proposals on that day, 12 March. A copy has been placed in the Library of the House.
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Publication in the Official Gazette is only the first step in the legislative process. Introduction of the Bill into the Legislative Council would be a separate step. As the Governor has said, we will have to judge, in the light of developments, when to take that step. Thereafter, I am sure that Members of the Legislative Council would want to discuss the draft legislation in great detail, in the light of the various alternatives put forward. before they reached a decision.
Publication of the legislation therefore should not make it more difficult to begin talks with China. The Bill sets out the Governor's proposals, which have been public since October, in legislative form. This does not affect the basis for talks with China, the need for such talks, or our wish to hold them. We have said that if we reached an understanding with the Chinese side we would recommend this to the Legislative Council.
So we remain ready for talks at any time and I hope that the Chinese side will be prepared to settle quickly on arrangements for such talks. We in Britain have responsibility for the administration of Hong Kong until 1997, and part of that responsibility is to maintain steady progress towards democracy in Hong Kong. We are open to discussion about how to achieve that, but the key point is that the electoral arrangements in Hong Kong should be fair, open and acceptable to the people of Hong Kong.
The Chinese side also have responsibilities and interests as the future sovereign power. Britain and China have every incentive to work together to ensure the future success of Hong Kong. We will continue to the greatest extent possible to pursue steadily the path of co-operation with China, and we look to the Chinese side to do the
same.
Dr. John Cunningham (Copeland): I welcome the right hon. Gentleman's decision to make a statement about the circumstances in Hong Kong and on relations between the People's Republic of China and Her
Her Majesty's Government. We had asked for such a statement, and I think that the whole House will be grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for making one. There is much in the statement with which to agree. It is conciliatory in tone and continues to offer open discussions without preconditions to the Government of the People's Republic of China. That, too, is welcome. It safeguards the legitimate interests and the right to make final decisions of the people of Hong Kong themselves whose future is the most important aspect of all in these matters. I congratulate the right hon. Gentleman on all those issues.
However, the central question remains unanswered. Why is it that, in the face of long discussions over many months with the apparent openness and willingness of Her Majesty's Government to meet without preconditions, the talks have broken down? Why is progress not being made? Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that in my meetings with Vice Premier Zhu Rongji and in several discussions with the ambassador of the People's Republic of China in London I have made it clear that we would always support proposals to extend democracy to the people of Hong Kong?
Is the right hon. Gentleman also aware that we urged the representatives of the People's Republic of China to return to the negotiating table with counter proposals, if
No comments yet.
Private notes are available after approval.