CODE 18-77
(4.79
Mr Hum
M3 st Si
216
SECRET
ps
НКК 040/5
Reference
FUTURE OF HONG KONG : BRIEFING MS SUTTER OF THE US EMBASSY
1. I should record that Ms Sutter called on me on 12 October and again on 25 October for an update on our talks with the Chinese. On the first occasion she was mainly interested in the Chinese propaganda campaign, which at that time was particularly virulent, and what we thought of it and its purpose. I spoke to her on standard lines.
2. On the second occasion she was particularly interested to know how the talks had gone on 20/21 October and how we expected them to go in November. I told her that there was no basic change in China's position and that we had conceded nothing but that it now looked as though we had been able to set the Chinese premise to one side and were moving into a phase which would enable us at last to get into greater detail on practical matters. I said we hoped to discuss with them in the coming weeks our ideas and theirs on how Hong Kong might look after 1997. This would be without prejudice to any final outcome. I said we would probably be looking first at the least controversial areas such as the financial and legal systems. I said that we would of course have to move on in due course to some of the more controversial areas and might then come up against, once more, the Chinese premise.
3. Ms Sutter was pleased to hear that Mr Luce had been fully briefed to bring the State Department, particularly Mr Wolfowitz, up-to-date on the latest round of talks. I took the opportunity to go through with her again what Mr Gomersall sent us in a teleletter on 18 October about the Chinese Foreign Minister's talks in Washington on Hong Kong and about what Mr Wolfowitz said at an Asian Society lunch. Ms Sutter was very interested in this and said they had received no reports at their Embassy in London of either function! She showed me an interesting telegram which they had received from their people in Hong Kong reporting Ji Pengfei's remarks last month to Dr Huang, (I have asked Hong Kong for a full text of these remarks, if one is available).
MK kogols
27 October 1983
RECEIVED IN SEGR TRY
*083
SECRET
nor Take i
смени
W Morris