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LCURITY CLASSIFICATION
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KIVACY MARKING
In Confidence
DRAFT
SPEECH AT SECRETARY OF STATE'S
Type 1 +
To:-
DINNER FOR CHINESE FOREIGN
MINISTER
From
•
Telephone No. Ext.
Department
DSR 11
1.
Mr Foreign Minister, it is a great pleasure for me to welcome you and your wife and the other members of your party to London. It is not our first meeting, as I had the pleasure of a first encounter with you in New York at the beginning of June. But this is [the first time you have come to this country and] only the second time that the Foreign Minister of the People's Republic of China has come to Britain. It is therefore an occasion of great significance to us.
But i
2. The impact of China's culture and civilisation on Europe has been great.. Equally, European culture, and particularly the scientific discoveries and practical technology which spring from our philosophical view of the world have made a great and growing impact on China. Thus Britain and China can look back over a long and fruitful history of contact over the centuries. doing so we have to accept that time, patience and flexibility have been needed to give the relationship a form and substance which reflects the realities of the modern world. . We have come a long way since Lord McCartney made his first visit to China in 1793. For us, a most significant development took place in January 1950, when the British Labour Government of the day was first amongst Western countries to recognise that, as Chairman Mao said, the Chinese people had stood up, and the newly established People's Republic of China had come in being. Our relations in the intervening years were not always easy, but in March 1972 we entered a new dimension when our Governments agreed to exchange
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