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Hong Kong and is purposive in all the acts carried out in its
name. On the British side there has always been a difficulty in
determining whether the delays and the frequent employ of
arguments about technical details as ways of stalling proceedings
are the result of confusions on the Chinese side or part of a
purposive strategic and tactical design. In other words should
Chinese moves be regarded as exemplifying the cock-up or
conspiracy theories of history? To give but one example, should
the reactions of outrage on the Chinese side to the Patten
proposals and the demand that they be withdrawn in humiliating
circumstances amid various calibrations of threats be seen as
evidence of a coherent strategy or as signs of uncertainty and
decay in the Chinese political system?
No it walit
For their part many Chinese
Chinese leaders are prone to see
conspiracies and clever machinations behind the actions of
adversaries. To cite but two recent examples, some Chinese
officials professed to see not only a linkage but evidence of a
carefully coordinated new British strategy in late May 1992 when
firstly, the newly appointed designate governor, Chris Patten,
stated at his first press conference that he wanted freedom as
well as stability and prosperity for Hong Kong; secondly, the
British Minister with responsibility for the territory (who had
also just been appointed to the job) stated publicly on his first
sit to the island that the only obstacle to amending The Basic
Law (the
for the future that had been
inale visit
mini-constitution
promulgated by the Chinese in 1990) was political; and thirdly
that John Major was photographed with Martin Lee (the prominent