SECRET
Foreign and Commonwealth Office
London SW1A 2AH
P Thomson Esq CVO
Peking
Telephone 01- 270 2953
Your reference
Our reference
027h
31
Date
24 July 1987
Acar Peli
I team
Min Vizele
Viode Catter. 2. is under - Jan I in
Aut.
cr 2012
2. PA
MINISTERIAL VISITS TO CHINA
ete
се гара 27/7
1. At an office meeting held on 22 July, which Sir Richard Evans and Sir David Wilson both attended, the Secretary of State concluded that we should do all we could in our dialogue with the Chinese between now and the publication of the White Paper to keep the Chinese in play. The period between September (when the outcome of the Survey Office report would become clear) and December (when the BLDC would meet) would be particularly important. There would be several opportunities: his own meeting with Wu Xueqian at UN General Assembly in September, the Governor's planned visits to Peking in September and late November, and JLG VIII in Peking in November. If things went badly he could conceivably visit Peking in conjunction with his planned visit to Japan in January. But this could be rather late for Hong Kong purposes. An earlier visit to Peking only would give rise to presentational problems, though the existence of a crisis might already be apparent from other sources. In the meantime linked visits to Hong Kong and China by British Ministers should as far as possible be avoided.
2.
The Secretary of State has already spoken on these lines to Lord Young, who has readily accepted that he should not also visit Hong Kong, when he visits China in October.
3. We also accept that Wu Xueqian will not now visit the UK this autumn (Peking telno 1275), but hope that this might prove possible in 1988. We would however need to watch the unfolding of Hong Kong business, before deciding how and when to ressurect the idea.
Yous
ever, Ricard
R Fletcher-Cooke
Far Eastern Department
CC: Hong Kong Dept
SECRET