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referred to the size of United States investment in China
which had now reached some $2.1 billion, making it the second
largest foreign investor after Hong Kong.
Southern Africa
The Prime Minister said that she was concerned about the
situation in Southern Africa. Apartheid must be ended. But
we did not want South Africa to fall under Soviet influence,
given its strategic importance and new monopoly of vital raw
materials. We wanted to see peaceful negotiations between all
racial groups.
Hu Yaobang said that if the United States and
Europe acted more decisively to bring about an end to
apartheid, there would be no danger of South Africa falling
into the hands of the Soviet Union. He wondered whether
Bishop Tutu could not be given a greater role in bringing
about negotiations. The Prime Minister said that there were
many different leaders who had to be involved. We would
continue to work for a negotiated solution, although it was not proving easy to persuade President Botha of the need for
this.
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United Kingdom China Economic Relations
Li Peng welcomed the decision to grant China some
£300 million of development loans. These had already been
earmarked for a number of projects, including two nuclear
power stations and an optical fibre plant. He was aware of
the Prime Minister's hope that part of the loan would be used to purchase ships from Sunderland. He shared the Prime
Minister's interest in this.
Li Peng continued that there had been a great development
in economic relations over the past few years with which China
was satisfied. These relations should be expanded further.
But this would require Britain to import more goods from China as well as provide more development loans and set up more
joint ventures. The Prime Minister said that Zhao Ziyang had
stressed the importance of development loans during his visit
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