Mr Ricketts HKD
CC: PS/PYS
Sir J Cotes
X HUM Mr Bone, LRD
Sir Robin Butler GCB CVO
Cabinet Office
70 Whitehall
London SW1A 2AS
Ref: A093/1728
Crateful for advice.
Satel
RS/PUS
10-vi
10
ECFL
OF
INDE
3474
303, Richmond Road,
Twickenham,
Middlesex TW1 2NP
8 June 1993
1KB 070/4 ыбра
Enter fl
16/6
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I've sudhritted afe reply
17 JUN 1993
Thank you for your letter of 27 May about the book. I am glad you enjoyed reading it and am grateful for your quick reply.
I think I understand your doubts; and I should not want to do anything that would sabotage the current negotiations. But your request does present me with serious difficulties and, with respect, does not flow logically from the common concern for the talks. As I shall try to show below, your fears about the effect of the book on
the talks are groundless and the case for suppressing two chapters
therefore not very convincing.
take the electoral arrangements first, your grounds for objection are exactly those expressed at the time of my first public comments last December, namely that by speaking out I am weakening
the British negotiating position.
There are a number of answers to this. First, I am no longer in any official post; the British negotiating line is determined by Ministers and the Governor; and the Chinese know perfectly well that I no longer have anything to do with it. Second, if there were any damage arising from my comments, it has long been done: my views have been known for many months; it is hardly plausible that, on reading my
book in 1994, the Chinese will suddenly see a new crack in the British
line; or the British negotiators feel they are under some new
compulsion. Third, since 13 April the gap between my position and
that of the Government has grown much smaller. After a period of
damaging confrontation, when we threatened unilateral action and leaving the issue to Legco to decide, the Government have come round
to a policy much like that
that I have advocated throughout, namely