CONFIDENTIAL AND STRICTLY PERSONAL
Foreign & Commonwealth
Office
(17)
The Rt Hon Christopher Patten
HONG KONG
HKB 010/2
London SWIA 2AH
10 May 1993lephone: 071-
RECEIVED IN SEGISTRY
De Gramar,
SIR PERCY CRADOCK
1.
2 MAY
IN.
REGISTRY
Taken
John Coles wrote to you on 5 May to record his discussion with Sir Percy Cradock about the latter's e planned visit to Hong Kong and China. John has now left on his visit to the Antipodes (and to Hong Kong), and he asked me to follow up the exchange in his absence. fact Sir Percy was a fellow-participant in a conference on China which I attended at the end of last week.
2.
*
In
In the course of the conference Sir Percy took me aside to give me his formal reaction to the approach from John Coles. He said he had considered very carefully the points which had been made to him. He fully understood that it was our preference that he should not go to Peking. He had nonetheless decided to go ahead with his plans. He was a private individual, and would be travelling as such. It would now be discourteous to his Chinese hosts for him to drop Peking from his itinerary.
3.-
7
I took Sir Percy again through our concerns, emphasising in particular that we were anxious that nothing be done which might complicate our continuing negotiations with China, either in terms of Chinese perceptions or in terms of presentation to the media. Sir Percy was unmoved. He stressed however that he had absolutely no interest in complicating our task. He was very relieved that we were now in dialogue with the Chinese, and he hoped that the negotiations would succeed. That is what he would tell the Chinese. was also perfectly ready to make clear both to the Chinese and to the media that he was travelling as a private person; that he was in no sense an emissary, and that he was carrying no message from HMG.
4.
He
Sir Percy did not ask me how matters stood in the talks: nor did I volunteer any briefing.
CONFIDENTIAL AND STRICTLY PERSONAL