Bilateral
It was made very clear to me that recent developments and changes are very welcome. Others, over visa arrangements and a new name for their representation in London as well as the stregthening of our own efforts in Taipei are looked forward to as a continuation of what is seen as a positive and improving trend. They would like to see a direct air link (and I have no doubt that it would bring us great advantages) but are content to let the airlines get on with it; and one or two badges allowing their representatives in London to get behind the scenes at the airports and so help with visitors of consequence would be greatly appreciated
(something I should add, to which our own businessmen attach much importance as they do to the questions of funding our education effort in Taipei and setting up an English language reading system there). But for the first time I was able to leave Taipei without an awkward shopping list in my pocket of things they would like to see changed.
Meeting with the Foreign Minister
I spent about an hour with Dr Fredrick F Chien, For eign Minister in Taiwan, on 11 March. I was greatly impressed by him. He has an elegance of bearing and a fluency of language which soften but do not hide the power and penetration of a first class mind. He spoke with a helpful candour which he said he believed to be justified by what he sees as a new ease and warmth in our relations.
His main purpose was to assure me that there would be no attempt to use relaxations in our dealings in order to score the points off the Chinese government. To explain his point of view he referred to his six years, up to 1988, in charge of Taiwan's representative office in Washington. From time to time there he had received invitations to congressional functions and even the White House. He had always sought guidance from the State Department and had accepted their advice not to go. In the same way he had refused several invitations to appear on network TV shows after consulting State and as a consequence had never received a complaint during his long mission in the States.
Nor, so far as he knew, had the Americans ever had a complaint about him from the two Chinese Ambassadors who had been in Washington during his time.
He held strongly to the view that it is wrong to pursue any differences with the PRC in other people's countries or in a way that might embarass their government. We would be sure that relations with Britain would be guided by this thinking.
Against this background he wished to raise two specific
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