SECRET AND PERSONAL
222
Foreign and Commonwealth Office
London SW1A 2AH
9 October 1979
CJ Benjamin Esq Under-Secretary
International Industrial and
Commercial Policy Division Department of Industry
Abell House
John Islip Street
LONDON SW1
і неконом
RECEIVED IN REGISTE V NO. 51 1 1 OCT 1979
DESA OFFICER
INDEX
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J15.0
RESIS KY
HONG KONG: NEW TERRITORIES LEASES
1.
2.
Thank you for your letter of 5 October.
Since my letter of 21 September was written the Chinese have told HM Ambassador in Peking that the legal steps which we had proposed to deal with the leases problem are, in their view, ''unnecessary and inappropriate'', and have urged us not to proceed with them. Their reasons for taking this attitude are not entirely clear but the message is plain and there is obviously no question of going ahead with the original plan.
3. In view of this development I shall not comment on the very reasonable points which you make in your letter except to say that we had taken them into account but had come to the conclusion that the approach which we had devised was the one most likely to be acceptable to the Chinese. I do not think we were wrong on that score, but we evidently underestimated Chinese sensitivity on any question touching on the future of Hong Kong.
4.
In
The problem, of course, remains and is bound to become more acute as time goes on. We will therefore need to consider in due course whether some alternative solution can be found. the meantime, you may have noticed Premier Hua Guofeng's assurance to Hong Kong investors at his press conference earlier this week; there were reports in yesterday's DAILY TELEGRAPH and FINANCIAL TIMES.
SECRET AND PERSONAL
15.