THE House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee (FAC) is holding informal hearings in the territory. The nine-member delegation, led by Tory MP David Howell, will conclude its four-day visit tomorrow. It is part of an inquiry into relations between the United Kingdom and China in the period up to and beyond 1997.
In June 1989, the FAC published its second report on Hong Kong, just three weeks after the June 4 massacre in Beijing. In it, the FAC recommended speeding up the pace of democracy and giving full British citizenship to 30 war widows and the non-Chinese ethnic minorities. This was rejected by the British Government. Instead of sticking to their laudable position on democracy, there are signs the FAC may back down and support the British Government's inadequate compromise proposals on constitutional reforms.
In the 1989 report, the FAC said 50 per cent of the Legislative Council should be directly elected in 1991 and the entire Legco should be directly elected in 1995. When I meet the FAC tomorrow with members of a Lobby Group, formed in the late 1980s to demand a fully directly elected Legco, I shall urge the FAC not to abandon its original stance.
The FAC's arrival coincides with what many Hong Kong people hope will be the final phase of the Sino-British negotiations on the 1994-95 elections.
Since the Governor unveiled his constitutional reform proposals last October, the Chinese and British governments have wasted an entire year in fruitless and acrimonious negotiations. An increasing number of Hong Kong people are fed up and would like to see the talks concluded and that they be given a say on their own future. This mood should not be lost on the FAC.
Legco members' feeling of anguish and frustration boiled over at a meeting on October 12 with the Foreign Office Minister with special responsibility for Hong Kong, Alastair Goodlad, in which he told legislators virtually nothing.