18
Den Ryan,
CONFIDENTIAL
Mald
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Foreign and Commonwealth Office
FEL.026/2
3 1 MAY 1979
DISK OFSÓRA INDEX
PA
AGRO
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London SW1A 2AH
18 May 1979 Малашено
ET2915.
China: Possible Visit by Premier Hua Guofeng
They
The Chinese Government told our Embassy in Peking early in April that Premier Hua Guofeng wished to take up the invitation which had been issued to him by Mr Callaghan in 1978. proposed a visit to Britain from 29 October to 5 November, following visits to France and West Germany. The formal visit would last from 30 October to 3 November, allowing 4 November for rest.
The level of recent Chinese visitors to this country has risen in line with the general improvement in our bilateral relations. Foreign Minister Huang Hua's visit in October 1978 was followed in November by a visit by Vice Premier Wang Zhen, the most senior member of the Chinese Government yet to visit this country. The Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary considers that a visit by Premier Hua Guofeng would be a logical and desirable development of this process, and that it would be commercially and politically disadvantageous if on his first visit to Western Europe Premier Hua were to visit France and West Germany and not Britain.
Although he now probably wields less political power than Vice Premier Deng Xiaoping, Mr Hua remains in formal terms China's most senior leader. In his capacity as both Premier and Chairman of the Chinese Communist Party, he outranks Mr Deng, as he does also, in Party terms, China's nearest equivalent to a titular Head of State, Marshal Ye Jianying, the Chairman of the National People's Congress.
Premier Hua was accorded Head of State treatment when he visited Romania and Yugoslavia last year, and we expect the Germans, and particularly the French, to involve their Presidents more actively than would be usual for other Prime Ministerial visits to Bonn and Paris. It would therefore be appropriate to recommend involvement by The Queen; Buckingham Palace have been consulted on a contingency basis and have indicated that The Queen would be free to give a Dinner for Mr Hua on 30 October.
The Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary therefore hopes that the Prime Minister will agree to receive Premier Hua on
Bryan Cartledge Esq 10 Downing Street
CONFIDENTIAL
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