Miss Marsden, HKD
Hong Kong: Article for The Times
The Secretary of State would like to pursue the idea of putting an article into The Times about Hong Kong. This would be partly for its own sake, partly because he would like to bring out the point that we have not in fact settled the number of seats for 1995. Although the Secretary of State made this point in the House of Commons, Sir Adrian Swire told him at lunch last week that it had not been grasped in Hong Kong where the main point of criticism among sensible people was that we had gone snap on 20 for 1995 when perhaps we could do better.
The Secretary of State would like the article to contain a passage along the following lines:
with
"I can understand, though I strongly disagree the reasoning of those who suggest that we should in some way tear up the Sino-British
Joint Declaration and plan the future of
I find this wholly Hong Kong on a different basis. unrealistic but it is at least logical. What strikes me as completely illogical is to accept the Joint Declaration and then argue that decisions should be taken which would guarantee its failure. To plan in Hong Kong for a smash or a dead-end in 1997 seems to me entirely irresponsible."
The article would then go on to make some of the points which Martin Barrow makes in his letter to the Financial Times; sketching the story of the negotiation, emphasising that it was tough, and bringing out in conclusion what the Secretary of State told David Howell in the House of Commons: that we have deliberately not agreed a figure for 1995, and that it will be at least 20, but we shall press for more.
26 February 1990
CC:
PS/Mr Maude
Mr Gillmore
Mr McLaren
Mr Lidington
Mr Whitehead, News Dept
(R N Peirce)