CONFIDENTIAL
Foreign and Commonwealth Office
London SW1A 2AH
PA
74/8
1051
J V Everard Esq PEKING
Telephone 01-
Your reference
Our reference
Date
Sex
124
FEC 020/12
24 August 1982
ник за
* 3401
*.
Dear John,
CHINA/FALKLANDS
1.
NIR
1125/8.
Many thanks for your letter of 26 July giving a considered assessment of Chinese motives during the Falklands crisis. We agree with the general lines of this.
2.
I think that the Hong Kong issue may also
have had some effect on the Chinese attitude to the Falklands. Being themselves the victims of colonialism, the Chinese probably felt that they must condemn the historic colonial power, however complicated the current position might be.
3. I fear that there is a hint of a non-sequitur in the first sentence of your paragraph 8. A low profile Chinese response would have been as likely to secure the possible advantages they perceived in Latin America without running any risk of serious damage to relations with Britain. Only the Argentines and we are likely to have followed the nuances of Chinese statements in any detail. As you say, the Chinese judgement that Britain would not 'retaliate' against them has proved to be correct. But I read this as evidence more of Chinese good-luck than of the competence of their foreign policy. Our Ministers did not focus on the shrill Chinese criticisms; had they done so and particularly if things had turned out less successfully in the South Atlantic Anglo/Chinese relations might have been affected and this at a time of uncertainty about Sino/US prospects, when a prudent Chinese foreign policy would surely have been concerned to avoid antagonising other important western partners.
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