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has occurred to Deng, and we must give thought to whether it would be feasible to disabuse him, and
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if not what we should say when this new Chinese concept of Hong Kong's future becomes known as it is likely to do in default of action to stop it.
Premier.
12.
The meeting with Mr Deng also gave me a chance to explain briefly what we intended to do about the problem of land leases in the New Territories in order to overcome the deadweight of the date 1997. I later made a similar explanation to the Foreign Minister.
Ideally I would have preferred to launch this exercise with somebody slightly less exalted but with a more detailed knowledge of Hong Kong affairs such as Mr Liao Chengzhi. The organisation of our programme did not, however, permit this. We had given some warning that we intended to refer to land leases, but we had given no details. Essentially, therefore, I had to take the risk of going in cold with the Vice The details of the exchanges have already been reported to the Department. Given the way in which we had to play it, the initial reaction was reasonably good. I trust we have got across the idea that we were talking about action to deal with a purely British legal problem in a way which does not require any positive response from China and does not conflict with the essentials of the Chinese position on the long-term future. We have now taken the first steps by explaining what we have in mind. There is no immediate hurry about the next moves.
They will have to be planned with care and take account of any Chinese reaction to our initial approach which we pick up meanwhile. I will be making recommendations to the Department in due course.
13.
The visit also gave us an opportunity to speak at all levels about Hong Kong's mounting problem of lega 1 and illegal immigration from China. It was accepted that more must be done on the Chinese side to bring the numbers down. For our part we accepted that means must be found to enable genuine short visits to be allowed.
14. In conclusion, I have no doubt that it was right to accept the Chinese invitation and pay the first official visit by a Governor to China since 1949. We have made a further, significant, step in building up a normal relationship. We have furthermore established personal contact with a number of senior Chinese leaders and established a pattern of discussion which may be helpful when we come to talk further about the land leases problem, or, some time ahead, about the longer term future.
The
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