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3. I see no substantive difficulty with any of Martin Dinham's suggestions (his faxed letter of 25 November). I hesitated a bit about his suggested addition to para 38 about the Chinese back-slide on appointed seats. Ideally we would confine our chronology to statements on the record, so as not to jeopardise info al channels or "preliminary" reactions. However the atmosphere will be so bad when it becomes necessary to publish the White Paper and for a long time thereafter that it is not worth worrying about this the priority is to get our own side of the case in the public domain in its most convincing terms. But, just in case anyone still has any scruples, it would be more gentlemanly not to finger Jiang Enzhu or (particularly) Zhao Jihua specifically for their reactions on 5 and 3 November; the point would still be pretty clear if, instead of Martin Dinham's final sentence, we said: "The Chinese side made no attempt at any point between 3 November and 19 November, the first day of Round 16, to contest this understanding". wished one could add something like: "although there were
If you natural opportunities for them to do so".
eve
Your Nigel.
N J Cox
CC
M Dinham Esq
HONG KONG
(by classified fax - IMMEDIATE)
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