CONFIDENTIAL
-2-
Chinese Government as possible. He hoped the Chinese Embassy would continue to play a prominent role in keeping Peking informed of views in London and he very much hoped to renew his acquaintance wih China as soon as possible after taking up the job.
4.
He hoped that his background as a politician and his close relationship with the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary would enable him to play a part in removing the doubts and anxieties that occur from time to time. Now was not the time to discuss matters of substance (he was still learning), but he wished to make two points:
5.
In our system the press hunted for any nuance between the Prime Minister and his integrity
yet despite the difficult transition over the past 14 months no-one had been able to put as much as a piece of tissue on matters of policy between him (as Chairman of the Party) and the Prime Minister. They were close friends as well as political friends. On Hong Kong he would expect to have as close a relationship with the Prime Minister as on Party business. The same could be said for his relations with the Foreign Secretary.
On convergence we were interested in a through train and that therefore there were decisions which the Hong Kong Government would wish to discuss with the Chinese, but at the same time with the awareness that until 1997, under the Joint Declaration, Britain was responsible for the administration of Hong Kong.
Ambassador Ma mentioned that Chinese support for the building of the airport was consistent, but at the same time China wanted low cost, efficiency and no increased burden on the HKSAR. We should proceed strictly according to the principles of the MoU. The financial arrangement proposals had been put to China only a little over a month ago. They were complex and this was not really long enough to consider them. He also mentioned the McConnell Bill. Whatever the Americans said were their intentions, China had had experiences before, and if Congress found fault (by their standards) with what was happening in Hong Kong it could become a political football. He hoped Mr Patten, as Governor, would take a look at this.
6. Mr Patten said that on the MOU, the Prime Minister would be asking searching questions on progress since the Agreement which he had signed. He would want to know that things were moving swiftly. Mr Patten stressed that it was important to do things on time, otherwise the HKSARG would lose out. On McConnell, he suggested that Ambassador Ma would know only too well how the US Congress works, and the ways in which to
CP2AAX
CONFIDENTIAL