Hong Kong (Hansard, 15 March 1993)

§ Mr. Goodlad

The Governor of Hong Kong, with the advice of his Executive Council and our full report, published the draft legislation on electoral arrangements in Hong Kong on 12 March.

We have made clear since September last year that we are willing to hold talks with the Chinese side without preconditions. That remains our position.

Despite our best endeavours, it has not so far proved possible to resolve our differences with the Chinese side over the arrangements for talks. We particularly regret this, as we consider that these differences could and should have been resolved quickly.

We told the Chinese side that we were prepared to talk on the basis of the Joint Declaration, the principle of convergence with the Basic Law, and the relevant understandings and agreements reached between Britain and China. We consider the Governor's proposals to be wholly compatible with these.

We also made plain that in any talks the British team would include the necessary Hong Kong officials with the relevant knowledge and experience on the same basis as other officials taking part in the talks. Hong Kong officials have participated in past discussions with the Chinese side as members of the British team, including during the negotiations on the Joint Declaration and in the joint liaison group.

We have also said to the Chinese side that Sir Robin McLaren, the British ambassador to China, would be the British representative, supported by a team consisting of Mr. Michael Sze, the secretary for constitutional affairs, Mr. William Ehrman, the political adviser, Mr. Peter Lai, the deputy secretary for constitutional affairs, and Mr. Peter Ricketts, head of the Hong Kong department in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. There would be no distinction between members of the team from Hong Kong and from London.

Having received a positive response from the Chinese side in early February on the principle of talks, we and the Governor, with the advice of the Hong Kong Executive Council, decided to postpone the Hong Kong Government's original plan to publish the legislation on 12 February. But we made it clear to the Chinese side that there could not be an indefinite delay, given the practical need to press ahead with legislation so that the 1994–95 elections can take place on schedule. We proposed an early starting date for the talks.

Despite the absence of a solution to the remaining difficulties, we and the Governor with Exco's advice 17W decided to delay gazettal for a second time on 19 February, for a third time on 26 February, and for a fourth time on 5 March.

The Governor explained to the Legislative Council in Hong Kong on 5 March that we wished to go the extra mile and give the Chinese side every opportunity to respond.

Unfortunately, by 12 March the outstanding differences had not been resolved and we still had no date for talks. We had not even been able to obtain agreement that an announcement about talks could be made early the following week. Having deferred gazettal on four occasions, we and the Governor therefore decided with the advice of Exco to gazette the draft legislation on 12 March. We shall have to judge, in the light of subsequent developments, when to introduce the draft legislation into the Legislative Council.

We remain ready to hold talks with the Chinese side without preconditions. The remaining issues are matters which, given the will, could be solved quickly. We still hope that they can be.