Hong Kong Governor to Push Reforms : Asia: Head of British colony to make public details of failed talks with China on enclave’s future.

Gov. Chris Patten announced Thursday that he will further press his reform campaign by making public an electoral reform bill that China strongly opposes and a sensitive government report detailing Britain’s account of its failed talks with China on Hong Kong’s political future.

In a special session of the British colony’s Legislative Council, Patten said he will submit to the legislature on March 9 the remainder of a political reform package that put Britain and China on a collision course when he first unveiled it in October, 1992. The bill will be published today, more than a week before it is introduced in the Council.

China denounced Patten’s move and reiterated its previous threats to undo any reforms and dismantle Hong Kong’s legislature when it assumes control of the colony in mid-1997.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Shen Guofang said Britain will bear responsibility for refusing Beijing’s demand that the reform proposals be withdrawn in exchange for a resumption of the talks, which broke down in November after 17 fruitless rounds.

Shen said Patten’s announcement had “slammed the door closed” on further negotiations.

Patten expressed regret over the lack of an agreement but said Britain had not closed the door.

“We want to talk on a whole range of issues and talk constructively,” he said. “Let us try to draw a line under this dispute and cooperate together in other areas in the interests of the people of Hong Kong.”

Patten got an implicit go-ahead on reform from the Legislative Council on Thursday, when it handed him a crucial victory by passing a “first stage” bill containing the least contentious elements of the governor’s reform package.

Passage followed an unusually heated 10-hour debate between the reformers and more conservative and pro-Beijing legislators who prefer to dilute or defer Patten’s package.

The first bill lowers the voting age to 18 from 21, abolishes government appointment of local Council members, halves the number of popularly elected legislators to one per constituency and allows some members of China’s Parliament to run in Hong Kong elections.

Patten’s remaining bill would seal his entire reform program by next month.

It contains steps that will significantly broaden the voting base for the 1994 municipal and 1995 legislative elections. Those elections will be Hong Kong’s last before it reverts to Chinese control in 1997.

The governor said that publishing an account of the Sino-British talks will help the public understand the course he has taken.

China objects to the disclosure, which would be unprecedented in nearly 12 years of mostly secret Sino-British negotiations.