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possible intervention in Hong Kong. They tend to portray our policy as craven surrender of Hong Kong's interests to an untrustworthy and tyrannical China, with the Joint Declaration as the figleaf. They have little sense of the political realities. We can scarcely abandon the Joint Declaration. There is nothing to be said for maintaining the Joint Declaration, agreeing to hand over Hong Kong to Chinese rule in 1997, but putting off any effort to achieve the necessary cooperation between Britain, Hong Kong and China meanwhile on the grounds that it is politically too difficult. If we keep to the Declaration we must do everything possible to make it work. That will involve a major task of education among the media and others in this country. In short, the Foreign Secretary thinks that a visit to China will be difficult in UK press terms. In Hong Kong the media difficulties would be greater if he did not go. The media and public opinion there generally understand more clearly the need to do business with China if satisfactory solutions are to be found; they expect the British Government to sort out problems with China.
On balance the Foreign Secretary believes that the interests of Hong Kong would be served by his visiting China as well as Hong Kong in April. For the past year we have made considerable efforts, through ministerial messages, through visits at junior ministerial level and through the Joint Liaison Group to restore a good working relationship with the Chinese over Hong Kong but progress has been glacial. If the Foreign Secretary does not try to move things forward by going himself we are likely to be faced with a continuation of the present
unsatisfactory situation, with serious consequences for our ability to maintain effective British administration in Hong Kong. A visit to China will not resolve all the outstanding problems, but he believes that it is worth a try. He has in mind to propose a more regular framework of high-level contact to try to push matters forward.
I should be grateful to know whether the Prime Minister would agree to the Foreign Secretary visiting Hong Kong and China on this basis. If the
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/Prime Minister