16 JAN 190 13:00
FROM COI TECHNICAL RADIO
TO FCO NEWS
PAGE.006
TRANSCRIPT C PORBIGH SEC
A
PC - HONG KONG
www.
16 JAX 90
5
QUESTION (Emily Lou, Far Eastern Economic Review):
In your contact with the Hong Kong people in the last few
days, do you detect a level of cynicism and disenchantment with the
British Government's policy on Hong Kong and that some people feel,
to quote your own words, "this last main chapter of the story of
the British Empire my indeed end in a chabby and even..
dishonourable way"?
FOREIGN SECRETARY:
No I do not. I read before I came that was what I would
find but I have not found it. I have found anxieties expressed to
me, and strongly expressed to me, but not in at all a cynical way.
And I have found, as I tried to express in what I said at the
beginning, a much more exciting prospect of the future for Hong
Kong than I had realised when I came here.
QUESTION (Observer):
Given the events of June, do you think Britain is
negotiating with a reasonable leadership in Peking?
FOREIGN SECRETARY:
I think that our contacts with the People's Republic about
China have been difficult because they feel somewhat defensive
after the events of June for reasons which you have analysed in
your newspaper and which are pretty clear.