PF Ricketts Esq
HKD
FCO
CONFIDENTIAL
MON DRO
35
Office of the
British Senior Representative
Sino-British Joint Liaison Group
12 October 1992
See
八
и раз
Joan Peter,
Рет
MICHAEL YAHUDA ON THE HONG KONG NEGOTIATIONS
Many thanks for faxing a copy of Hugh Davies' minute of 30 September.
1.
2.
William and I have looked at Yahuda's article. We are not particularly concerned about the quotations attributed to us, which seem to be fairly harmless, although I for one did not expect to be quoted by name. I doubt it is worth taking this up.
3.
The "gangsters and street fighters" quotation was attributed by Michael Yahuda to Sir Percy Cradock. I myself would not have said this about my opposite numbers: in fact I think I told Michael Yahuda that as professionals we had respect for them. I might well have said something of the sort about the Chinese leadership, though I do not think I used those words. If I said it (and I cannot remember whether or not I did) it would have been to illustrate the reasons why the Chinese leadership sometimes takes decisions on Hong Kong which people elsewhere find irrational. But the point is that they are not irrational if viewed against the first priority of any Chinese leader, that is success in the current bout of political infighting in Peking.
4. William and I both found the article as a whole superficial and somewhat naive. It rather suggests that Yahuda started with a thesis, and then sought to fit evidence to it which does not in fact really fit the thesis. The quotation from me is not really illustrative of what I was saying: I am quite sure that I made the point to Yahuda that many of our problems do stem from Chinese misconstruction of our motives. To this extent I agree with him that there is broad misunderstanding. This is not inconsistent with there being conflicts of interest and actual differences of substance on particular points.
CONFIDENTIAL
/ 5.