Tactical Considerations
12 It will be several years before any contract is drawn up and ten years before any fuel has to be supplied. The UK therefore does not have to give any formal assurances at this time. It would in any case be for the country supplying the PWR nuclear island to have the prime responsibility for negotiating the non-proliferation condițions. This is unlikely to be the UK. On the other hand we need to give the Chinese some indication of our likely position
now.
Action with the Chinese
13
We propose doing this by instructing A Peking to speak to the Chinese on the following lines, which takes into account the various considerations above:
a) to indicate the assurances which we should definitely
need; to take explicit note of China's position about inspection and to leave them with a fairly clear impression that we would not seek inspection without indicating that position formally at this stage formal negotiations should come later when the commercial position is clearer;
b)
to explore the possibility of China playing a further role in interns tic al efforts to cont in proliferation, inclui val har, acceptance of cafejuards.
HONG KONG COLDIRADICH
1.
Hong kong is alromy to some extent elient on China for a proportion of its needs, Lot: bly food and water. A joint venture between orjanis:tions in Hong Kong and wangdong on the supply of electricity would further co-operation between Hong Kong and the Southern Cina provinces which is impor but to China in the context of their modernisation pangrame. An advantage to the UK is that it would increase Chinese interest in maintainin, the status quo in Hong Kong, helping to Lolter business confidence in the territory and counter sy uncertainty bout ng or future arising from
: I
COITEIDMITATA.