Mr Ricketts
Mogente
HKD
CONFIDENTIAL
01212
RECEIVED
13 JU! 1993
DESK C INDCX
M
огра
и Сетевари
Mr Sze
вы
REGISTRY Sir R. Mclaren
tion Taken
2.
Back to me
Hong Kong: Office Meeting, 1 July
175°
Эла
The Secretary of State and the Governor met before OPD (K) this morning. You have already acted on the question of the Secretary of State's visit to Peking and Hong Kong. The other operational points which arose
There was discussion of the suggestion that 8 December should be the effective deadline for concluding the talks. It was agreed that this would need careful handling, especially in public, to avoid giving the Chinese the impression that we were setting an ultimatum. The Governor agreed that 8 December need not be treated as a strict deadline, and that we might speak in terms of needing a conclusion "by the end of the year".
The point was made that the Chinese saw the Governor's October speech as a natural deadline for the process. We should keep the December deadline to ourselves. We should in due course need to consider carefully what line the Governor took in that speech, and to take the Chinese through it. Amendment to certain Hong Kong legislation would be needed in October which would reveal our timetable to the Chinese.
2/7
01 July 1993
сс
: PS
PS/Mr Goodlad
PS/PUS
Sir J Coles
Mr Hum
Hd, FED
Planners
News Dept
Special Advisers
Skerm Smith
(J S Smith)
CONFIDENTIAL
1