Select Committee on Foreign Affairs Minutes of Evidence

ANNEX

PRELIMINARY WORKING COMMITTEE AND PREPARATORY COMMITTEE

PRELIMINARY WORKING COMMITTEE

  The Preliminary Working Committee (PWC) was set up in July 1993. However it was not until the proposals on constitutional development were passed by LegCo in 1994 that it became active, and began the process of undoing certain legislative changes brought about in the last years of British rule which had not been supported by the Chinese Government. Part of the PWC's role was to prepare for the Preparatory Committee. The PWC had 70 members, 37 of whom were pro-Beijing figures from Hong Kong, and the rest were mainland officials.

BACKGROUND TO THE PC

  In December 1995, Beijing announced the formation of a Preparatory Committee, whose objectives were to "prescribe the specific method for forming the first LegCo" and to prepare for the "establishment of the Selection Committee for the first Government of the SAR." The Preparatory Committee was envisaged in the Basic Law (under the NPC decision of 4 April 1990).

  The Preparatory Committee was set up in January 1996, under the Chairmanship of then Foreign Minister Qian Qichen. It had 150 members, hand-picked by Beijing. Ninety four were from Hong Kong and the rest from the mainland. Beijing officials played the leading roles and administered the committee. The Preparatory Committee held its last meeting in Beijing on 11 July 1997.

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Prepared 3 July 1998