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since the US and France had blotted their copy books.
5. The Secretary of State said that he would speak frankly on Privy Counsellor terms. He explained why the Governor had put forward his proposals without prior discussion with the Chinese. But we wanted to get a discussion underway with them. There had been various feelers from their side, and talks about talks in Peking. This had not amounted to anything yet. At the same time, the Chinese seemed to have concluded that they went too far in their public threats before Christmas. And in Hong Kong, many alternative proposals had been put forward. Neither the Governor nor HMG wanted to be more royalist than the King.
6.
The Secretary of State concluded that Ministers and the Governor realised that there was much at stake on the commercial side. Equally, there was an important issue at stake in turning the one country two systems concept into a reality. Ma might not be up to date with the various activities underway. It was important that business Leaders did not give Ma the impression that they were push-overs.
7. Comment: The Secretary of State said after the meeting that he would Like Ambassador Ma to be told that we were aware of his arm twisting in the business community and were surprised by it, given what Zhu Rongji had said to the Prime Minister about Sino-British trade. The Secretary of State envisaged that this might be done at senior official level. I will follow up with Sir J Coles on his return.
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