Transcript by
JAMES LEE of:
BANQUET SPEECH BY THE PRIME MINISTER, MRS. THATCHER,
IN PEKING, ON WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 19, 1984.
Your Excellency Premier Zhao Ziyang, Your Excellencies, Ladies
and Gentlemen:
First, may I thank you, Premier Zhao Ziyang, for that
toast and for the excellent speech in which you proposed it.
It is a privilege and a great pleasure for me to be
visiting China for a third time in seven years. Each visit,
as you said, Premier Zhao Ziyang, has been all too short, but
each visit has made a deep impression on me.
This visit has a special importance, because it marks
an historic achievement, that achievement with our signature
this afternoon on the Joint Declaration on Hong Kong.
In
our
my speech at the signature ceremony, I described the
significance which we attach to the Joint Declaration;
determination to make a success of it; and the firm basis
which it lays down for the growth and prosperity of Hong Kong's
unique society into the middle of the 21st century. I expressed
my conviction that the people of Hong Kong would rise to the
challenge that lies ahead of them.
The world can draw a lesson from the successful outcome
of our joint enterprise: that determined negotiation can
succeed where confrontation would surely lead to disaster;
that