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not

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said that he did

think his think his interlocutors entirely believed their own story, not least since corruption was an undoubted reality, but they did seem to blame Hong Kong interests more than eg the United States for what had happened. On the whole he had found the Chinese very satisfied with the Portuguese position on Macao: they certainly had no hang-ups abgout the extension of democracy in the territory.

7. You and others will be better placed to make sense of these remarks. As an outsider I found it a balanced and realistic view of Macao's usefulness to Peking and the chances of a successful transition to a new regime. The parallels with Hong Kong are, I

but the suppose, there:

in size, many differences

wealth and political importance no doubt distort the

the lessons to be drawn. From a narrower OECD point of view, there is no suggestion that Macao should feature in the dialogue with dynamic Asian economies in which Hong Kong has so important a role to play.

CC:

Часи

J W D Gray

William Ehrmann Esq, Hong Kong Chanceries: Peking, Tokyo, Lisbon

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