TNAG-0950-FCO40-1169-Effect-of-nuclear-exports-to-China-on-Hong-Kong-Guangdong-nu-1980 — Page 11

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In response to Dr Marshall's presentation of his discussions in Guangdong the Governor made the following three points.

1) He was worried that in conversations Dr Marshall had quoted his (the Governor's) opinions. This, if it were done at all, should be done

with care.

Dr Marshall apologised for not thinking this through himself

and undertook to avoid all reference to the Governor in future.

2) He wished to make it clear that he, the Governor of Hong Kong, was seeking advice from HMG regarding the safety of the nuclear plant and he needed to be satisfied that a plant built on the Mainland of China would not affect the safety of Hong Kong itself. He himself was not asking that the plant in Hong Kong should be licensable if built in the UK, he just needed an assurance on safety. The Governor further explained that it would be politically very difficult for HMG to indicate that a French plant built on the Mainland was unsafe because this would pre- cipitate an international incident between the British Prime Minister

and the President of France. Dr Marshall replied that on this point he

was entirely confident that he had always drawn a sharp distinction between risks to Hong Kong (zero), safety of the reactor (assured for all designs) and meeting NII safety guidelines (which might give diffi- culty). It was Kadoorie who had insisted on the third version against

Dr Marshall's initial advice. Dr Marshall undertook to rehearse the

situation again with Kadoorie.

3) The Governor also made a point regarding the discussions that were taking place with Lu Ying: his comments, he insisted, were observations

and were not the result of a discussion with Kadoorie but he felt that

there was some risk that Kadoorie's position would be undermined. The

Governor said that he had seen many negotiations go wrong because of separate lines of communication. He floated the idea that if the

individual discussions each led to a joint Kadoorie, Marshall meeting

with Wang, then this would be seen by the Chinese as supporting

Kadoorie. Dr Marshall replied that he liked that idea, stressed that

his discussions with Lu Ying had taken place with Kadoorie's consent,

and undertook to consider this whole position with Kadoorie as soon as

possible.

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