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GEC were feeling their way back into the
negotiation
We and the French maintained that we had
completed the main financial negotiations, but the Chinese still said that "premium"
and "bank charges" were areas that needed to
be cleared.
Li Peng, due to make a visit to Eastern
Europe on 15 December, diverted to Paris,
and made a "political settlement" with
Mme Cresson, the French Trade Minister, to
bridge the outstanding gap on price for both
Framatome and EdF. It was also left that
French officials would travel to Beijing to
clear up outstanding issues by Christmas.
This they did, and the heat then shifted to
the UK.
GEC were fighting a tit-for-tat battle on
price concessions, and the Chinese had
resurrected the issue of "performance
guarantees from the UK Government" in
addition to a substantial price reduction
from GEC. The UK official team indicated
that it could only go to China to complete
negotiations on the finance, and GEC negotiated
over Christmas and into the New Year. Their
price negotiations were only resolved by an
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