It is a reasoning that seems to have swept along all governments. During the August (982 visit to Guangdong of your servant the Governor Sir Edward Youde, the provincial governor told him that the State Council had approved the Project in Daya Bay.
Two Months later, Your Majesty's servant Sir Edward in his annual address to the legislative council disclosed that the Hong Kong Government had agreed in principle to Kadoorie's China Light and Power buying electricity from the nuclear power station.
But the smooth sailing bumped into some turbulence in the shape of tense remarks by Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher during her visit to Beijing in late 1982, which started off the Sino-British talks on the future of Hong Kong.
In 1983, Sino-British relations hit a low.
Although the Hong Kong Nuclear Investment Company, a wholly owned subsidiary of China Light and Power was formed during the year, the formation of the Guangdong Nuclear Power Joint Venture Company (Guangdong Nuclear Power Joint Venture Co.) the owner and operator of the nuclear power station was put on hold.
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in which it would hold a 25 % interest
A perceptive article in the Chinese Journal The Nineties argues that Daya Bay became a poltical chip in the talks on Hong Kong's future. Even more so since all the big nuclear vendors were after a piece of the action and China Light and Power was keen for the General Electric Company to supply the generating set.
It was only the successful resolution which flowed from Sir Geoffrey Howe's trip to Beijing in April 1984, at which he relinquished all British claims to Hong Kong after 1997, that the obstacles to the joint venture were removed.
In the annual report for 1984, Lord Kadoorie disclosed