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come up with something that really hits the target and that the approaches will have to come from us. However, by para 8 he is arguing about the risk that the Chinese may come up with some proposal of their own which we do not like, or because we have not had 'a sustained interchange' of views on the future of Hong Kong.
2.
I do not believe that the Chinese work in this way. We shall have to wait until there has been some kind of internal Party debate with conclusions of the kind which enabled Zhou En-Lai to speak authoritatively to British interlocutors in the early fifties.
3.
Nevertheless Sir P Cradock has written forcefully for an initiative by us and I agree with the broad terms of the draft reply, subject to my suggestion that there is no need to mention the idea of the Governor of Hong Kong paying a farewell visit to Peking at this stage. If we made mention of it, one would in any case have to note the possibility that a further opportunity will arise when Sir Murray's successor paid his first visit to Peking. The danger in mentioning such contacts is that it cuts across our well worn theory that questions involving the status of Hong Kong must be for the governments of the UK and China to consider.
Antonald
A E Donald
12 January 1981
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CODE 18-77
SS A/78.
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