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High diplomacy
15. Freitas Cruz met the Chinese Ambassador in Paris on 20 January. CM describes Freitas Cruz's performance at the Chinese Embassy as farcical. After a bombastic speech in which he assured the Chinese ambassador of the pro-Chinese spirit of the Mota Pinto government, Freitas Cruz asked for the negotiations to be reopened and invited the Chinese to chose a venue. CM interprets this as an attempt to have the negotiations transferred elsewhere and thereby taken out of his hands.
He draws attention to links between the magazine Tempo and Freitas Cruz.
The censured communique
16.
The Chinese stated that they wished the negotiations to be reopened in Paris (a vote of confidence in CM). The problem over the text of the agreement was resolved by the Chinese replacing one phrase with another which had exactly the same meaning. The Portuguese government was thus able, without losing face, to accept a text which it had recently rejected, by alleging that the Chinese had agreed to make a change.
17.
The agreement was signed by Han Kehua and CM on 8 February 1978 (sic)/1979_7. A communique was released simultaneously in Peking and Lisãon. CM claims that the Portuguese text was censured the names of the two signatories, mentioned in the Chinese version, were omitted from the Portuguese. That Easter Mota Pinto relieved CM of his duties. CM attributes this to Mota Pinto's resentment at having failed to remove CM from the the negotiations.
Conjectures
18.
CM speculates that-absurd though it sounds Mota Pinto might have been overcome by a wave of patriotic fervour which caused him to back out of the agreement with China at the last minute .
As for Freitas Cruz, his philosophy of life was to fall in with the opinions of others (ie the Prime Minister and the President) at all times. According to CM Foreign Policy was non-existent during his time at the MFA.
To go or not to go
19. Mota Pinto's last minute change of heart provided an excuse to try to have the negotiations moved elsewhere. However, the rumours which began to circulate in Macau and Hong Kong in mid-January made Mota Pinto realise that his patriotic volte-face was proving counter-productive. While Tempo claimed that the purpose of Freitas Cruz's visit to Paris was to correct the Portuguese ambassador's errors, it in fact provided the Portuguese Government with a way out of the corner in which they found themselves.
A delicate matter
20.
The delicate matter of Macau was raised by the Chinese immediately after the opening of the negotiations as a pre- existing problem questão previa 7. CM claims that in the
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/negotiations