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4.
On the first, Sir Julian Ridsdale made a standard "friends of China" presentation. He said he had warned Mr Patten on taking up the Governorship to have nothing to do with talk about human rights. It would only upset the Chinese and set things back. He was sorry that his advice had been so comprehensively ignored. I said that "human rights" was a misleadingly vague phrase in this context. What we were trying to do was to meet the need as we saw it to increase the accountability of the Hong Kong Government to the people it ruled and to preserve so far as we could the rule of law which was probably the best legacy we could leave behind us in 1997 and which contrasted so markedly with the gangsterism and corruption prevailing north of the border. This found little response. More interesting than Sir Julian's well known views was what Mr Tanaka had to say. view appointing Mr Patten was the worst mistake we could possibly have made. We should have continued the tradition of appointing Foreign Office Sinologists who understood China.
In his
5. When conversation turned to the United Nations, Sir Julian said that he did not understand why we did not come out clearly with a statement in support of Japan's permanent membership of the Security Council. It was bound to happen, it was in our interests that it should and there is no point in appearing reluctant to accept it. Mr Tanaka commented that our response to Japan's ambitions was entirely inadequate. I repeated the standard line that we saw Japan as a natural beneficiary of any change in the Security Council set up. Mr Tanaka repeated that that was inadequate. Why could we not say straight out that we were in favour? I said I thought the Japanese liked subtlety and the indirect approach, but Mr Tanaka stuck to his point.
6. I also took the opportunity, drawing on Christopher Hum's letter of 10 December to the Ambassador, to stress to Mr Tanaka how much we hoped Mr Hata would fulfil his undertaking to visit London for the Conference and bilaterals with the Secretary of State in January. The Conference had, after all, been Mr Tanaka's own idea. Mr Tanaka merely groaned and had no optimism to offer. I did not directly address Mr Saiki on the subject as I know that C(P) has only just done so, but I took care that he heard what I said. Interestingly, he commented that all would be much clearer by the end of today (15 December). He may of course have been referring only to the outcome of the Diet vote of censure but possibly he also knows when his Minister is likely to focus on the issue and take decisions.
7.
I must say I am finding Mr Tanaka increasingly difficult to deal with, however stimulating. He reminds me somewhat of those highly convinced German officials one used to deal with in Bonn, believing in the rightness of their vision for their country's future (basically nationalism wrapped up as internationalism),
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