THE United Democrats yesterday accused the Governor of giving in to China by watering down his political reform package. The liberal party urged Chris Patten to table his package in the Legislative Council immediately, regardless of the Sino-British talks. Party chairman Martin Lee Chu-ming said it was regrettable to hear from the Governor that the British side had backed down at the negotiating table. ''The Governor opened his speech by reminding us that his proposal announced last year had wide public support and he also reminded us that he also had wide majority support in the Legislative Council,'' Mr Lee said. ''And when he ended his speech today he was appealing to the council to be firm to stand up for democracy for Hong Kong and so on. ''Thus we feel very surprised that the British Government saw fit to make a huge climbdown from his original proposal during talks with China.'' Mr Patten admitted yesterday he had revised his electoral package to meet China's demand. But he said he remained committed to ensuring a democratic development which would not compromise elections. He revealed he had made major moves to satisfy China by revising the controversial proposals on the formation of the nine new functional constituencies and the Election Committee. Under the revamped functional constituency poll, Mr Patten has trimmed the franchise from the original 2.7 million to about one million. ''We have devised a new proposal for the nine new functional constituencies, based on organisations as the Chinese have argued and with a total eligible electorate of about a third of that in my original proposal,'' he said. But he did not divulge details on the composition of the nine constituencies. The original nine constituencies intended to widen the size of eligible voters in functional group polls to cover the whole working population of more than 2.7 million. Furthermore, he said he had revised his proposal and ''tried to meet China's preference for a four-sector Election Committee of the kind set out in the Basic Law for the post-1997 Election Committee''. According to the Basic Law, the four sectors are businessmen; professionals; labour representatives and grassroots people; and former political figures, such as local deputies to the National People's Congress. The election committee will elect up to 10 legislators in 1995. Last year, Mr Patten proposed an election committee which comprised all directly-elected District Board members. Mr Patten said his revisions were ''major moves'' instead of ''mere negotiating ploys''. ''They are evidence of our sincerity, our flexibility, and our determination to make a success of these talks,'' he said. He expressed regret that no agreement had yet been reached on his political reform proposals. He stressed the legislative process had to be completed not later than next July if elections were to take place on time. Some legislators, however, doubted whether Mr Patten had done enough to facilitate an agreement with China. The 15-strong Liberal Party said they were not sure whether Mr Patten had made concessions. Vice-chairman Ronald Arculli said what Mr Patten had revealed was just a broad outline. He said the four-category framework of the Election Committee was agreed in the seven diplomatic exchange letters between the two governments and could not be regarded as a concession. Mr Arculli also doubted whether there were just ''weeks'' remaining if things needed only to be in place by next July. Pro-China legislator Tam Yiu-chung questioned whether the British had set a deadline for the talks when the Governor mentioned there were only a ''few weeks'' for the talks. He said Mr Patten's remarks seemed to contrast with British Foreign Secretary Douglas Hurd's repeated assurances that no deadline had been set. Meeting Point legislator Fred Li Wah-ming said he could not accept Mr Patten's modified proposals. He said his proposals on the nine functional constituencies would greatly narrow the electoral franchise. Jimmy McGregor however supported Mr Patten's revision. He said Britain had shown a great deal of goodwill and common sense in putting forward the modified proposals. He said if the Chinese side did not respond to the proposal with concrete action, Hong Kong would have no alternative and had to table the Governor's reform proposals in Legco.
