CODE RAD
52
Reference
UNCLASSIFIED
Mr Bunten, Hong Kong Department
CHINESE RESEARCH STUDENT
1.
As agreed, I met Eugene Qiang on 5 November. He is at present attached to St Anthony's College, Oxford and is working on a doctoral thesis on China's Decision-making Process with regard to the Hong Kong Question. He is taking the late-70s as his starting point as he believes that China's policy towards Hong Kong has been greatly influenced by the policy of opening up to the outside world that began at about that time. His supervisors are Dr Steve Tsang and an expert on Constitutional Law as he had originally intended to write his thesis on the Basic Law. He will be leaving this country shortly for Hong Kong where he intends to spend 9 months where a friend of his has got him a job in a Research Institute. He will then go on to Peking where he hopes to interview a number of Chinese officials dealing with Hong Kong questions. His thesis is due for submission in 1995 and he hopes to be able to get funding to return to Oxford to complete it. Failing that, he will write it up in Shanghai where he comes from.
2.
So far, he seems to have done his research mainly from press and published sources, although he has interviewed a number of people in this country, including Lord Wilson and several Chinese who were involved peripherally at one stage or another. We talked in general terms about the process of the Joint Declaration negotiations.
3. About the most interesting thing he said was that he had interviewed a Chinese economist in Oxford who had sat in on some of the discussion meetings relating to Hong Kong in China during the Joint Declaration negotiation period. He was convinced that economic questions has a significant influence on the Chinese policy. Vice-Premier Gu Mu, for example, had been one of those who argued strongly for reaching an accommodation with Britain on the grounds that this would be of economic benefit to China. He also said that, the Chinese felt that as part of the deal over Hong Kong, they had offered the British substantial trading inducements, notably the Rolls Royce engine deal which proved a bit of a disaster for China, but had been useful in persuading the British to come round in the negotiations.
RF Wye
Far Eastern Section
Research & Analysis Dept
OAB 2/125
6 November 1992
210 6219
UNCLASSIFIED
НК.С
000/1