TNAG-2991-FCO40-3566-Future-of-Hong-Kong-constitutional-development-1992 — Page 48

SECRET

how to get from here to there with the minimum political damage;

(i)

(ii) how to convince the outside world that what we doing has the support of Hong Kong opinion.

On (i), I think it will be politically essential to be seen to have tried seriously and sincerely to persuade the Chinese to accept a faster pace of democracy. Of course that means that the eventual climb-down will be embarrassing. But the alternative of a pro-forma, half-hearted approach to the Chinese in order to clear the issue away quickly as ExCo currently prefer, seems to me to get the worst of both worlds. It would confirm the impression in Hong Kong that our commitments on democracy were no more than playing to the Westminster gallery. And it would not impress that gallery either.

5. To minimise the impression of failure, I think we should put a broad package to the Chinese, including a number of proposals which (because they did not contradict the Basic Law) we would if necessary be prepared to implement unilaterally. The voting age is an obvious example. I would then envisage several months of intermittent negotiation with the Chinese. At a certain point we would have to make a judgement as to how much could be agreed, how much we could do unilaterally and what elements to drop. The weighting of such a package would obviously involve fine political judgements. The aim should be to stop just short of the point where the Chinese felt obliged to say publicly that the through-train would not run. The timing for that decision might be summer 1993.

6.

We will want to carry Hong Kong opinion through these negotiations, but to avoid getting hung up on any further impossible negotiating objectives. To maintain some room for manoeuvre, the best sequence might be: agreement between the Governor and Ministers here on the composition of a package and the elements in it which were irreducible: agreement to this from ExCo (in its re-fashioned form): a broad outline of our opening position to be given in the Governor's LegCo address: a take-note debate on this in LegCo, so that views can be aired without committing the Council to specific conclusions: then a negotiation with the Chinese.

-

7. Showing that Hong Kong opinion supports what we have achieved - (ii) above will be the best way of selling the outcome in Parliament. But it is perhaps the most difficult trick of all. Two obvious possibilities are a referendum or early LegCo elections. A referendum in Hong Kong would carry the same risks as one in the UK on Europe. Advancing the LegCo elections is unlikely to help. In the first place, we would have to choose a composition of LegCo which would

JIFABR

SECRET