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CONFIDENTIAL
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REMR
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NOTE OF A MEETING WITH MR P POTTER OF NUCLEAR POWER COMPANY (NCP) AT FCO ON 25 MARCH 1980.
Present:
Mr R Alston Mr R Fursland Mr Williamson Mr J Evans
Head JNU
FED
HKNG
JNU
Mr N R Brice
DOI
This was a "de-briefing" meeting following Mr Potter's return from Quangdong where he had meetings with numerous provincial officials. He tabled a report which he had prepared but which was not available for study before the meeting. The mahor portion of the meeting was taken up with discussions of the "shopping list" of major projects prepared by the Guangdong provincial authorities. This is being reported on separately by FCO but essentially the officials were a little sceptical as to the reliability of Mr Potter's information and sought to establish its reliability. Mr Potter responded by saying that he had visited China on several occasions and was therefore more highly regarded than Ministers and senior officials who tended to call only once for a short period. Mr Potter said that there were a number of commercial opportunities which he would be following up personally but urged that a common Whitehall view on a request for a visit by a junior minister be decided within a couple of weeks or so.
We then went on to discuss the nuclear power station project itself. Mr Potter said that both he and the Guangdong Electricity company had come to the conclusion that Hong Kong would not be able to take part of the output from the power station at its present size. It would have to be somewhat smaller than the currently envisaged two 1,000 MW sets currently under discussion. Power output would be needed by about 1990, implying a building start around 1983. Mr Potter said that it was his understanding that the NEEwould be asked to be the managing agent, and that the turbine would be supplied by GEC. The American non-proliferation conditions would be too severe so the most likely supplier of the nuclear island would be France.
Referring to the current visit to Guangdong by Sir Lawrence Kadoorie and Dr Walter Marshall of UK AEA, Mr Potter some what disconcertingly referred to these as being, in the opinion of the Chinese, a "Charade". It was the Chinese view that Sir Lawrence Kadoorie was only interested in buying and selling electricity and that he was not trying to influence the choice of station supplyi Derek March agreed that he would not speak of this to Dr Marshall. Mr Potter suggested that the decision to purchase a nuclear power station had already been taken by the provincial authorities.
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Also on the shopping list were fossil
power stations, though whether oil or coal was not known. Although these will be acquired by open tender, there was a willingness to give at least one contract to GEC.
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