PS/Lord Goronwy-Roberts
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SINO/BRITISH RELATIONS
1.
Wi
In your minute of 11 August you asked for an Agenda and supplementary briefing for the Minister of State's meeting at 10 am on Friday 18 August. As you will recall, the Prime Minister had asked for an appraisal of Mr Cradock's telegrams numbers 469-471 and for Dr Owen to put to him recommendations for
action on their content.
2. As background for the discussion I attach the following key papers which have been agreed inter-departmentally in recent months and which in various ways draw together the wider aspects of our relations with China, particularly as these affect the United States and our other close allies, Japan and the Soviet Union. These are:
(a) The Secretary of State's minute to the Prime Minister
of 18 November 1977.
(b) The Planning Paper on China of 16 March circulated to
all members of the DOP.
H
(c)
The Secretary of State's DOP paper on Defence Sales to China of 16 June, together with the Annex produced by officials in DOPO(SE).
3. In general I recommend that we accept the main lines of Mr Cradock's arguments as they relate to China itself. When it .comes to recommendations for action, there are a number of basic assumptions which we need to make for practical purposes, and I suggest that it would be useful to begin the meeting by seeing to what extent we can agree on these: a number of headings (and other points will doubtless emerge in discussion) are set out in Part 1 of the Agenda. In this context we need to consider not only the question of Sino-Soviet relations, which Mr Cradock and Sir Curtis Keeble have dealt with in separate correspondence, but
/also the
CON
CONFIDENTIAL
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