Sir Yue-Kong Pao
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PRIVATE AND CONFIDENTIAL
8th December, 1987.
The Rt. Hon. Sir Geoffrey Howe, MP Secretary of State
Foreign and Commonwealth Office London SW1 2AH
ENGLAND
Dear Geoffrey,
Both Anna and I want to thank you and Elspeth again for the breakfast at the Carlton Gardens on 23rd October when we were in London. I much enjoyed our talk.
About my proposed donation of a library to a U.K. universary in the name of Mr. Deng Xiaoping, you may like to know that I already had a chance to mention this to Mr. Deng personally when his family and mine had a dinner in Beijing together last week. He seemed to be pleased with the idea and verbally gave his consent for the project to go ahead. I have already informed the Prime Minister of this by letter but would be grateful if you could treat this matter in confidence.
The next step I will take is of course to write to Sir Mark Richmond as you suggested and see what worthy institution in the U.K. he could suggest. I appreciate your continued assistance as things develop.
You probably also know that the Prime Minister has agreed to her name being linked with the proposed library at the Ningbo University which I founded in Ningbo. The understanding is that the construction costs for both libraries, (roughly estimated at Pounds Sterling Two Million for the one in U.K. and Pounds One Million in Ningbo, but these are subject to factual calculations as no initial consultation has yet been made with architects or construction firms), would be contributed solely by myself. However, it strikes me that it might make sense have a few prominent sponsor team among U.K. commercial and industrial circles also contribute to a portion of the costs in Ningbo, to get their names associated with the institution and give the Chinese side another sign of the great interest the United Kingdom has in fostering good relations with China. Perhaps you could consider this and let me have your views.
Cont'd. 2/-