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view of the unsubstantiated comments made by Lord Ennals, his predecessor, following his visit there a few years ago.
3. We had a long and of course fruitless discussion about the need for the Chinese to talk to the Dalai Lama.
Hu and Zhang said that China's door was open, except on the question of
We warned them that, until the Chinese talked independence. without preconditions, the West would never understand their
position.
Their White Paper told one side of the story but not the whole story. Tibetans wanted genuine autonomy which we saw as effective self-government within China.
We strongly urged the need for the unconditional opening of talks. The subject would not go away; nor would public interest here and elsewhere.
SINO-BRITISH RELATIONS
4.
Zhang enquired whether we had proposals to promote relations
this year.
I said that the fact that Qian Qichen had now agreed
to talks over Hong Kong was a very welcome move. We had been
We had solved many problems by urging this for a long time. discussion, as the Foreign Secretary had said to Qian. Now that discussions could continue, the atmosphere for wider relations would be much improved. Talking the prospects up, I said that I was greatly encouraged that, after difficulties in the second half of 1992, relations could now get back onto course. The agreement over UK-Taiwan Air Services had been a good example of how we could solve problems by discussion. I emphasised that Qian's message, just received, was under careful study and that I was not of course in any position to comment on it. It was the fact of the message that I welcomed. Hu said with deliberation that talks should take place on the basis of the 3 basic agreements between us. Mr Morris and I merely commented that of course this was so, but that the talks needed to address those
on which no agreement had yet been reached and on which we
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