DIV
Jiang was not Deng's first choice. Qiao Shi was, but successfully turned down the job on grounds of ill-health. His back, my Soviet friend said, was injured in the cultural revolution and he finds it difficult to sit for
long periods. Where did the Russians think Jiang fitted in the pecking order? He ticked various elderly names off on his fingers and settled for 7 or 8.
12.
The death sentences here attracted much attention, even if the overseas media were at fault in not making clear the fact that those arrested for burning the train here were not students. Sentence and execution were quick in contrast to the man originally sentenced to death on 22 April for burglary in the US Consul-General's residence (I attach a useful note on this case by the Americans).
ECONOMIC CONSEQUENCES
13.
The Western Consulates here were wise not to go to the public meeting arranged by the local Foreign Affairs Office on 24 June. For the record, I attach a copy of a paper which was circulated at it.
As
14.
An carly loss for Shanghai scoms to be the 1993 World University Summer Games which an NCNA story of 16 June from Bonn said has now been awarded to Buffalo New York, in competition with Shanghai and Fukuoka. you know, the first stage of the Shanghai Metro was originally meant to be completed in time for these games.
15. Another casualty was the Mayor of Shanghai's "International Businessmens Advisory Council" the first meeting of which had been due to take place here from 31 May to 2 June. The 15 members of the panel included three from the UK, Sir David Alliance of Coates Viyella, Sir Eric Sharp of Cable and Wireless and Mr Patrick Sheehy of BAT Industries. I attach a copy of a note about the meeting by the Shanghai Foreign Investment Commission.
16.
The
For the future we will obviously monitor the occupancy rate of Shanghai's international hotels. recent period included the aberation of the Shanghai Hilton's rate shooting up to 23% during the influx of media tourists, of which the largest single contingent seemed to be from the UK. It was a bit of a strain coping with them, especially as we had quite regular visits over the same period from relatives of the Hong Kong student in detention here. I hope we did not offend too many by keeping them at arms length from the Consulate for most of the time. We did try to be helpful, but only after the rest of our work had been done. Only one of the journalists here was expelled and most of them behaved with reasonable circumspection. I was plow sed to know of at least two
CONFIDENTIA
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