SLCIAT
Sir Murray MacLehose GBE KCMG KCVO
HÙNG HƯNG
8 April 1980
X
NEW TERRITORIES LEASE
1.
NIR
Thank you for your letter of 22 February. I am sorry that it has taken so long to reply.
2
I agree that we should have no rret about having raised the issue of leases. The Chinese cannot get away indefinitely with vague assurances about the future and think that they will suffice. We really had no alternative therefore. If there was one thing wrong with our last approach (and its form was dictated by the circumstances of your visit) it was that we had to "go in cold". Deng had made his general remarks about the future almost before we had explained the problem. In a country as bureaucratic as China Deng's assurances may well have been taken as a partial substitute for thinking about, or at least for considering properly and at a high enough level, the rather detailed issue - of individual land leases which you presented.
3. On the other hand I am sure that Leng was speaking honestly when he indicated that no decisions had been made about the future of Hong Kong. I suspect that the Chinese are hoping that the gradual development of Guangdong will not only alleviate the immediate problems of immigration, but will also promote a process of symbiosis between Guangdong and Hong Kong which will somehow remove or at least reduce the political problem of the
SCHLT
eventual