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TUESDAY, APRIL 6, 1993
and fair. We also argued that it was more likely that one would
promote political stability if the proposals for elections in
Hong Kong were acceptable to the community.
After I had put the proposals to the Legislative Council I
went to China for a couple of days to discuss them, among other
matters, although mostly to discuss them with Chinese officials.
We had two days of vigorous but wholly courteous exchanges. At
the end of that,
before the just before
what George Schultz
presciently described to me as the 'post visit blast'
-
at the
end of those discussions it was suggested that, since we had not
managed to find common ground in Beijing, we should continue the
discussions in the Joint Liaison Group, in discussions between
the foreign ministers or in other forums.
I then left Bejing, accompanied, as I have said, by the
blast, at which point the Chinese position appeared to change.
From that point on, through the winter, the Chinese position was
that they would only talk to us if we withdrew the proposals that`
we had put forward in October, despite the fact that, by then,
those proposals had twice received the broad endorsement of the
Legislative Council.
-
Through the winter there were between 2 3 million words
of not always useful abuse from pro-Bejing newspapers and so on,
exercising that freedom of speech and freedom of the press which
I hope they will continue to stand for. But despite all that, community support remained pretty solid and in early February the Executive Council decided that it would put in legislative form to the Legislative Council the proposals which I had originally
put forward in October.
/WE SENT