SECRET
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1021/1
SECRET
FM FCO
2
ju. 1993
40
174656
MDHOAN 4572
COPY
TO DESKBY 22010OZ PEKING TELNO 378
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OF 211639Z JUNE 93
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INFO DESKBY 22010OZ HONG KONG, UKREP JLG HONG KONG
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PERSONAL FOR AMBASSADOR FROM HUM, AUSS
HONG KONG PERSONAL FOR DINHAM, GOVERNMENT HOUSE
012/7 (496)
YOUR TELNO 842:
842: HÙNG KONG: TALKS WITH THE CHINESE: TIMETABLE
1.
You will be receiving separately a telegram authorising you
to take a low-key sounding about Qian's availability for a meeting with the Secretary of State on 9/10 July.
2.
As background to this, you are right to detect that thinking here and in Hong Kong has been coming round to the conclusion that in most foreseeable circumstances a visit by the Secretary of State on this timing is unlikely to be useful. If the talks are getting nowhere, it would serve no purpose for the Secretary of State to go to Peking merely in order to repeat the line you have been taking. If the talks are making modest progress, then the right tactics may well be to continue as at present without offering the Chinese side any further inducement. do also need to allow for the (admittedly less likely) scenario in which the talks make significant progress at the Sixth Round and Ministers conclude at OPD (K) on 1 July that a visit by the Secretary of State would be useful. That is why we believe that we should still establish whether the option of a visit on those dates is feasible, without raising Chinese expectations.
3
But we
You should also know for your own information that the Secretary of State had some reservations about sounding out Qian in the manner we proposed when he considered the issue over the weekend. He wanted to avoid a situation in which he felt obliged to go ahead with a visit even if it was not likely to be useful, merely because we had signalled to the Chinese a willingness on his part to come. Hence the request that the approach be made as a diary question, and the discretion in the telegram for you to take action at a Level below your own so as to minimise the political signal.
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