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Mr Elliott
CC:
Mr Crift
Mr Holmes
Y K PAO
1.
22/2
1
Mr. McQue Mr. Williamses
To the Governor in the pichin? Med telecaster 1/22/2
If not I think I
I have been telephoned twice this week by Sir Y K Pao's Worldwide Shipping Office in London.
2.
See (81
A Miss Chiu asked me on 17 February if we had received any answer to our invitation to Mr and Mrs Gu Mu to visit London. I repeated what I had told Sir Y K Pao in Manila, namely that the invitation had been renewed by the Lord Privy Seal on 6 January to the Vice Minister for Foreign Affairs and that the ball was still in the Chinese court.
3. On 18 February Mr Phillip Cater telephoned me in response to further prompting by Sir Y K Pao who is at present in Peking and will return to Hong Kong today. According to Mr Cater Sir Y K Pao had ascertained from Mr Gu Mu that he was in principle willing to come to Britain with his wife and that if a third repetition of the invitation were made, it was likely that Mr and Mrs Gu Mu would accept. Mr Cater announced that the launching of the ship at Sunderland will take place on 25 May and said that he was embarrassed about how to deal with the present situation.
4.
I explained carefully to Mr Cater that Vice Premier Gu Mu was one of four Chinese Ministers for whom there had been invitations to visit the UK. We had heard from a fifth Minister (the Minister of Health) that he was likely to come to Britain this year but the original invitation had been issued in 1980! The Lord Privy Seal had specifically mentioned Vice Premier Gu Mu to Vice Minister Zhang Canming during his visit to Peking. I said that there was no specific and urgent business which would' cause us to want to repeat the invitation a third time. If Sir Y K Pao was able to speak 'Shanghainese to Shanghainese', could certainly say that the invitation was still on the table but we would not want to interfere in the internal discussions within the Chinese leadership about when invitations to the UK should be taken up.
5. Mr Cater said that he would be reporting to Sir Y K Pao and would perhaps get in touch again. No doubt he will.
Aktmelik
he
19 February 1982
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