as
a tiresome diversion from the main business of Sino-
British relations, which was pictured as
pictured as some twentieth
century equivalent of the "Great Game" played by Britain
and Russia in Central Asia in the nineteenth century.
It was strange stuff. No official I came across
had any illusions about the regime we were dealing with in
Peking. We had all been through the mill. Noone had any
doubt of the primacy of Hong Kong in our dealings with
China. Nor did we justify British policy on any other
grounds. The accommodations with Peking were not prompted
by regard for China, but by the calculation that any other
course would have been much more damaging to Hong Kong. It
was throughout a policy of cool realism, recognising the
immutable facts of the situation and directed to providing
the maximum protection for the territory in the difficult
circumstances in which it was placed. And it was endorsed
and applied by a succession of Ministers, none of whom could
be described as a sentimentalist on China or naturally
compliant in negotiations. Every position was stubbornly
fought and concessions made only after a scrupulous balance
of profit and loss for Hong Kong. If there had been any
other practical course we would have been overjoyed to
learn of it. Defiance was naturally always tempting. But it
was one thing to be defiant when we in Britain would bear the
consequences ourselves. To be defiant at the expense of a
third party, particularly one to whom we stood in a position
of trust, as with Hong Kong, was something very different,
an inexcusable self-indulgence.
Nevertheless, it must be recognised that official
**