CONFIDENTIAL
AKK
011/3
RECEIVED IN SZ-
2 5 NOV 1983
DESK OFFICE. INDEX
30
No
Mr Clift, Hong Kong Dept
From:
Date:
M. Huuna
Sony Acland 17 November 1983
Mr Krane
Advice pl
18/11
HONG KONG
1.
As you know
over Hong Kong.
2.
a good deal about the negotiations
I do not think that anything in his assessment was very new. He has no doubts that the Chinese are wholly insistent on gaining both sovereignty and administration.
3.
(a)
(b)
(c)
(a)
(e)
main comments were:
Does HMG really understand the Chinese mind and their need to maintain "face". Any challenge to their sovereign position and its attributes will be unacceptable to them.
Do we have enough Chinese advice. If he were conducting the negotiations he would use a top level Chinese consultant (I suspect he has Lee Kuan Yew or one of the Singapore Ministers of Chinese origin in mind).
EXCO is unrepresentative. We should pay more attention to the middle rank people in Hong Kong and to the workers who have no future other than in Hong Kong. The very rich can get out and have in any case already transferred their assets. It follows from this that we should be widening the representational system in Hong Kong and be building on and increasing the local councils.
We should think more carefully about public presentation in Hong Kong. The Chinese were very skillful at this and we were losing opportunities at not getting our views in the scores of local broadsheets.
The Bank of England should have intervened earlier to stabilise the Hong Kong dollar.
CONFIDENTIAL
THIS IS A COPY THE ORIGINAL HAS BEEN CLOSED FOR
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