Ra Riho ne
е
EX
Macao file
M
ти
SECRET
Foreign and Commonwealth Office
London SW1A 2AH
Telephone 01- 233 3473
RJT McLaren CMG
Political Adviser, Govt Secretariat HONG KONG
1287. Monis
What
are want
is a leaked
secret
greement
SCR 13/4841/59
Your reference
Our reference
127/2
Date
26 July 1983,
21
THE
28 JUL 1983
INDEX
De (23)
SINO-PORTUGUESE RELATIONS AND MACAO
1.
-15
Thank you for your letter of 6 July The enclosure is interesting. I have asked Chancery, Lisbon, to obtain a copy of the book by A Coimbra Martins (which is unobtainable here), and shall be glad to let you have comments when I have had a chance to read the relevant chapters,
2. In the meantime I offer a few comments on
summary. Much of this seems to me to fit the known facts, but the dates given. on the third and fourth pages as 10 January 1978 and 8 February 1978 should both be corrected to 1979. There was indeed a last minute delay in concluding the agreement on Sino-Portuguese diplomatic relations. At the time the British Ambassador asked the Portuguese Prime Minister whether the Chinese were trying to get the Portuguese to agree to an alteration in Macao's status, and the Portuguese Prime Minister replied that they were not really doing that, but did want to include some wording which the Portuguese regarded as unsatisfactory (Lisbon telno 33 to FCO, 26 January 1979).
3.
In the event the text of the communique published on 8 February 1979 contained no reference to Macao (although as you know there have been reports of a secret provision or oral undertaking on Macao linked with the communique). In a statement accompanying publication of the communique in Lisbon, the Portuguese Prime Minister described the establishment of diplomatic relations with China as a 'translation of the knowledge, respect and interaction of the two peoples over many centuries, resulting from our voyages to the East, of which Macao remains as an eloquent fact'. In answer to a question he added that Macao's constitutional status was 'not altered by the establishment of diplomatic relations with China' (Lisbon telno 56, 8 February 1979). If the reference on the fifth page of
summary to Portuguese disagreement with a Chinese demand for inclusion of the 6 January 1975 declaration is taken to mean that the Chinese wished the Portuguese to repeat their 1975 statement that 'Macao could be the subject of negotiations between the two governments at an appropriate time', this would accord with the Portuguese Prime Minister's comments.
THIS IS A COPY
THE ORIGINAL HAS BEEN
CLOSED FOR
40 YEARS UNDER FOI EXEMPTION No.40 (2), 38, LL1
SECRET
14.