CODE 18-77
Miss Johns
Defence Dept
E 321
CONFIDENTIAL
Reference
SHIP VISITS TO CHINA AND SOVIET UNION
Нико
RECEIVED IN !
RE
- 2 AUG 1979
OFFICER
15
Seep
1.
Our consideration of these related questions has got off- beam (as I suggested might be happening in my earlier minute of 26 July).
2. I understood that, since my minute to you of 5 April, it had been agreed that the questions of ship visits to China and the Soviet Union were linked, and should be considered in conjunction by Ministers before planning got firm. In my minute of 18 July, I said I assumed that this would be done by your department, in consultation with EESD and FED (because it would have been inappropriate for either department to submit on the overall subject).
3. I now see (from Mr Mallaby's submission of 27 July) that EESD have sought Ministers views on the question of a ship visit to the Soviet Union. The submission appears to me misleading, in that it suggests that a visit by "one or more ships to a Chinese port next year is under consideration", As I understand it, and subject always to operational considerations at the time, a major visit to China next year is firmly planned as the centre piece of a Group deployment. I had been seeking a lead from your department, to enable a submission on this subject to go ahead, together with whatever reference was necessary to a possible visit to the Soviet Union.
4.
It is now too late for us to ask Ministers to look at the question of visits to the Soviet Union and China together. I assume that, once we know the result of EESD's submission, we should submit to Ministers seeking confirmation that they have no objection to a ship visit to China before the MOD go any firmer on this than they have done already. This will look disjointed, and is a pity, since the question of ship visits is just the sort of issue in which we should be seeking to establish a balance in our relations with the Soviet Union and China.
5. I should be grateful if you could (after consulting Mr Watkins) let me know urgently if this seems to your department the right way to proceed, and if you could give me firm advice on the stage which MOD planning for a visit to China has reached, and therefore in what terms we should be asking for Ministerial approval at this stage.
1 August 1979
Cc:
Mr Crow EESD, W103) Mr Ling (HKGD, K242)
веи.
RC Fursland
Far Eastern Dept
K 255 233 5539