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6.
The Governor said that Members might have noticed
from the press that he and the Ambassador had attended a
farewell lunch for the outgoing Chinese Ambassador, KE Hua,
given by the Foreign Secretary. Lord MacLehose had also
been there. There was no special significance in the
presence of the Archbishop of Canterbury; he had no doubt
been included because he had recently visited China.
7.
The Governor said that he had heard nothing to
confirm the rumours that KE Hua would be coming to Hong
His successor as Ambassador in London would be
Kong.
CHEN
Zhaoyuan(陳肇源
Zhaoyuan (who was a Cantonese born in 1918 whose experience was mainly in Asian affairs though he
had also served in Stockholm and Madrid. He was currently
head of the second Department of Asian Affairs in the Chinese Foreign Ministry. CHEN was expected to arrive at the end
of May.
In the meantime the Embassy would be headed by LIANG Geng, a career diplomat born in 1922 who had been in London for three years and had served in Tokyo immediately before that. Since the London Embassy, had no role in the talks the Governor did not expect the change of Ambassador to affect the Chinese position in any way. Among other personality changes, the Governor noted that Vice-Minister ZHANG Wenjin had been posted to Washington as Ambassador. The British Embassy there would certainly keep in touch with him but it was unlikely that there would be any substantive
discussion in Washington.
8.
The Governor said that the only other subject raised during his recent visit to London had been Vietnamese refugees on which he had emphasised the problems for Hong Kong if the numbers here continued to increase and the offtake
did not improve.
9.
Finally, the Governor recalled that on his way back to Peking Sir Percy Cradock had spent two or three hours in Hong Kong during which he had met ExCo Members informally and had given some impressions of the personalities involved
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