22 November 1993
BY FAX
Martin Dinham Esq Government House HONG KONG
Page
SECRET
Foreign & Commonwealth
Office
13
London SWIA 2AH
Telephone: 071-
Dear Martin
WHITE PAPER
16/11
4KB 01116/1
икв
1. I had a productive flight back to London, and as a result enclose an up-dated draft of the White Paper. You will see that it is now drafted on the assumption that the Chinese have broken off the talks because we went ahead with first-stage legislation.
2.
The Secretary of State saw a slightly earlier draft of the introduction and was content with it subject to some minor amendments which are now incorporated. I would be grateful if the experts could check carefully the more detailed sections: we need to strike the usual balance between an accurate text and one which drowns the reader in arcane detail!
3.
Given the need to have contingency arrangements in hand for a breakdown in the talks as early as next week, I would be grateful for essential comments by first thing on Thursday 25 November. I would propose to pass the text to HMSO for setting up in proof at that stage. If we were caught short by an early breakdown in the talks, we would probably have to issue photocopied versions of the typescript in the first place.
Ya
eve
Peter
PF Ricketts
HONG KONG DEPARTMENT
CC: Nigel Cox Esq, PEKING
dinham22.11/LETTERS/NJH
Ps you will see that
fection is
SECRET
tails off, pending further developments!