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Service. Finally, in Canton I was met at the station by a member of the Foreign Affairs office, who also accompanied me for part of my Canton visits. A dinner was then arranged in a lake-side restaurant by the same people who entertained Alan Donald in 1976, i.e. Yang X'o-chung, the Deputy Director of the Canton Foreign Affairs office (Alan refers to him in his records as the Director but this post is in fact held by a man called Ma Fu), and Fu Fen, who is in charge of the department responsible for Hong Kong and Macau affairs. un each of these social occasions the atmosphere was friendly and relaxed.
The
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Both in Peking, with Sung, and in Canton, with Yang, I raised the questions of immigration and future water supplies, repeating the key points of what I had already said to the CNA in Hong Kong. On immigration sung said that he was aware of my discussion with Chu Yi of the NCNA on 8 May. They were already consulting with the "departments concerned" to see what could be done. Canton response was similar. Yang added, somewhat plaintively, that the movement of people to Hong Kong always seemed to be a problem. If they allowed too fev people to go, they were criticised; if they allowed too many, they were also criticised. I told him I sympathised with their dilemma. Ve had no wish to limit the number of people travelling through Hong Kong to elsewhere; it vas only the number who remained that was causing us growing concern because they would have a serious effect on all our future programes for the welfare of the people of Hong Kong. The Feking and Canton conversations showed that the Chinese have now absorbed, at a sufficiently high level, the fact that the number of people crossing the border is causing us concern. Nevertheless it is also evident that they are finding it difficult to work out how to deal with the problem, partly because, as was said in Feking, responsibility for granting exit permits is devolved to the provinces. Although they did not say so specifically, my impression is that the Chinese will now take steps to deal with the problem. But I do not think we can expect this to have an immediate effect and I have some fears that what they do may prove to be inadequate.
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un future vater supplies, the response both in Peking and Canton was sympathetic. Sung recalled his own involvement in the first major agreement in 1964 and how the discussions then had reminded him of a Chinese novel about "The Country of Gentlemen", vhere the seller always tried to reduce the price of his goods and the purchaser to offer more. In Canton, Yang said that they vere already discussing the matter with "those concerned" sie agreed. with my suggestion that a meeting between experts would be desirable, but gave no indication of when he thought such a meeting might be held, I think we can take it that a meeting between the two sides vill now be arranged.
/contd.......
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