CODE 18-77
Mr Clift Clift
CHATHAM HOUSE:
RESTRICTED CNF1@ENTIAL MIKKO¢ol,
CHINA DISCUSSION GROUP:
Reference
INDEX
لان
1764
REGISTRY
Action Taken
DESK OFFIC R
CM10/2
MR ROBERTADLEY MCM 10/2
MP
1. As you know, I attended today's lunch meeting of the China Discussion Group at Chatham House, where Mr Robert Adley MP spoke about his recent visits to China and Hong Kong.
He
2. Most of Mr Adley's talk was on Hong Kong and its future. He spoke in familiar vein. His remarks contained the usual mixture of commonsense, superficiality and indiscretion. elaborately disclaimed any profound knowledge of China or Hong Kong but at the same time clearly felt that he was playing a certain role in the present negotiations on Hong Kong's future.
3.
(i)
(ii)
(iii)
(iv)
Mr Adley's main points of interest were the following:
On both the Chinese and the British side there had been a helpful evolution in positions on Hong Kong's future. The Chinese now understood better how stability and prosperity might be maintained in Hong Kong. The personal position of Mrs Thatcher (of whom Mr Adley was consistently critical) had moved from a passion for legality towards an understanding of the realities of the situation.
It was а feature of Chinese diplomacy to make use of messengers. Mr Adley had been "passing messages from one side to the other" for the past year. Invited by a questioner to expand on the statement Mr Adley said engagingly that he might be deluding himself about the role he was playing. But he had passed on to the Chinese Ambassador things he had learned from discussion with Ministers. By the same token he had passed back to Ministers significant remarks made by the Chinese Ambassador and on certain points he might have been instrumental in the achievement of
progress.
In Hong Kong some strands of opinion were well behind the game and actively anxious to avoid
change. His meeting with UMELCO had been "frightening". It was a strange state of affairs when the Chinese were putting forward ideas for greater democracy in Hong Kong and the "fat cats" were trying to suppress these. Hong Kong people would have to realise that there was
no alternative to an agreement with China on the territory's future.
There was no way in which the views of the Hong Kong people could be accurately established. It was inconceivable that an agreement of principle with the Chinese, duly announced to the British Parliament, would be abrogated because Hong Kong opinion was against it. The talk of acceptability was "transparent nonsense".
(v)
In his
view the eventual aim of the Chinese was to create a Greater Hong Kong, in which the systems of
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