071 270 3734
03-DEC-1992 13:45
FCO NEWS DEPT
31.PERCY CRADOCK INTERVIEW WITH PETER SNOW,
NEWSNIGHT:
2 DEC
BER 1992
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Mr Hum Mr Rickett, Wik Mr
This ever g I asked Sir Percy Cradock just how significant war Jane Fe
the war or words between Britain and China,
was
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I would say it's the most serious crisis we've had over Hong Kong over the last 10 years, and to find anything like the same state of tension I think I'd have to go back to the cultural revolution in the 60s. Any situation where there's confrontation between Britain and China is bad for Hong Kong. It doesn't matter who wins, which of the 2 capitals wins, or seems to be winning, Hong Kong suffers as it is suffering now.
Do you think the Chinese mean what they say when the indicate that if these things go ahead without their agreement they will scrap them?
I think they mean precisely what they say, and it would be a serious, indeed a fatal, misjudgement to think otherwise. They are very serious.
Are you in effect saying that what is happening now is a fatal misjudgement, that broadly British policy ...?
I don't want to be drawn on that, Peter. What I'm saying is that to discount the seriousness is a very, very serious mistake. They are in earnest about democracy, which they fear basically. They would, if relations had been good, have been prepared reluctantly to accept a degree of democracy under existing arrangements that we'd worked out, but if these reforms are implemented, I am quite sure that they would be ready to dismantle them and impose what they think is a safer system, which by definition means a more repressive system.
I say it's a violation of the 1984 Agreement. Do you think that's right?
It couldn't be argued one way or the other. Well, what I'm saying on this is that it's not a lawyer's argument for a Court, we're dealing here with preponderant, political and, in the end, military power.