The Recovery of Hong Kong } 599
presentation also conveyed to Qian Qichen the impression that China’s con-
sent to expanded direct elections in Hong Kong was a precondition for a visit
by Britain’s foreign secretary to Beijing.^50 Beijing was still in its immediate
post-6-4 pariah status, and a visit by Britain’s foreign secretary would be
useful to Beijing’s efforts to restore its reputation. Jiang Zemin responded
to these British “pressure tactics” by indicating that the number of directly
elected LegCo seats should match arrangements specified in the Basic Law
(then still being drafted by the NPC).
Thatcher’s letter to Jiang and Cradock’s talks in Beijing led to talks between
Qian Qichen and foreign secretary Douglas Hurd. In January 1990, Qian
received from Hurd what Qian deemed a “detailed wish list” regarding Hong
Kong. This led to the beginning of negotiations over Hong Kong that would
continue for two and a half years, until their collapse in late 1992. Although
the talks focused on the role of “direct elections” in constituting LegCo, in
the estimate of Qian Qichen the real, underlying issue was who would guide
Hong Kong’s postreversion political system, London or Beijing? Eventually,
Hurd and Qian agreed, via an exchange of seven letters, on the number
of directly elected LegCo seats and the ratio of those seats to other “func-
tional” LegCo seats in the elections remaining before reversion. Following
this agreement, Hurd visited Beijing in July 1990. This made Hurd the first
ministerial-level Western leader to visit Beijing following 6-4.^51 Beijing had
leveraged London’s desire for Chinese agreement to Hong Kong’s legislative
democratization to ease China’s post-6-4 moral odium. On February 18, three
months after the Hurd-Qian talks, Renmin ribao released the text of the Basic
Law for Hong Kong, drawn up by the National People’s Congress after several
years of “consultation” with people in Hong Kong, especially wealthy capital-
ists whom the CCP saw as the true rulers of the city.^52 What Beijing would
later call “the three agreements” were now in place: the Joint Declaration of
1984, the Qian-Hurd exchange of letters, and the Hong Kong Basic Law.
Up to 1992, Britain attempted to democratize Hong Kong by obtain-
ing China’s prior consent. In 1992, however, this approach was deemed by
London to have yielded inadequate results, and a new approach was adopted.
In July, Christopher Patten took over as Hong Kong governor. Patten would
proceed with reasonable democratization measures, staying within the let-
ter and spirit of “the three agreements” and keeping Beijing informed of
British moves. But failing to obtain China’s consent, Patten would move
ahead with his modest democratization plans. Patten believed that Britain
had the power to do this under the 1984 Joint Declaration, which had stipu-
lated that prior to July 1, 1997, “the government of the United Kingdom will
be responsible for the administration of Hong Kong with the object of main-
taining and preserving its economic prosperity and social stability; and that
the Government of the People’s Republic of China will give its cooperation
in this connection.” Beijing saw this new approach as British “unilateralism.”