29 JUL '93 14:52
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29-JUL-1993 13:07
Gallagher
0491 579838 P.06
MR CHRIS PATTEN
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DOORSTEP
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LONDON 29 JULY 1993
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left to climb and we do not have as long as it took to build the Great Wall to get to the top of it. So there is still much work to be done and those who are negotiating in August and thereafter still have quite a big agenda to get through.
QUESTION:
Is there a deadline and if so is at 6 October which you quite strongly suggest?
MR PATTEN:
No, and just to show how carefully I read everything you write, I would like to say once again that neither we, nor the Foreign Office, nor the Hong Kong Government, nor the British government as a whole have in any way changed our position on the time we have got in order to settle these matters. Of course we have view about when we need to have brought these discussions to a conclusion, you do not have to be a genius to recognise that there comes a moment when it is simply too late to have in place the arrangements that are required for the 1994/95 legislations, you have to prepare the legislation, you have to get the legislation through, you have to get the arrangements in place. What I have declined to do because I do not think it would be very helpful to the negotiations is circle in red or any other colour dates in the diary because I think that can make negotiations more difficult, it starts to look unless you are careful like an ultimatum rather than a statement of the imperatives of the calendar.