TNAG-1038-FCO40-1288-Future-of-Hong-Kong-1981 — Page 183

布政司署

SECRET

GOVERNMENT SECRETARIAT

LOWER ALBERT ROAD

HONG KONG

香港下亞畢道

3 April, 1981

* OUR Ref : SCR 7/1162/46 VII

來函檔號 YOUR REF:

R Clift Esq

Hohg Kong

FC O

Ca

General Department

fick,

CHINESE VIEWS ON THE FUTURE OF HONG KONG

Entã

Q.13/4

акконов

RECEIVED AN AEGISTRY NO. 51

22 APR 1981

DECK OFFICER INDEX

2714

REGISTRY Action Taken

Mr Edmund Lau, General Manager of the Hongkong & Yaumatei Ferry Company has, as you may recali, a growing family friendship with Liao Chengzhih, the Head of the Hong Kong-Macau Office.

2.

Ah st

Edmund Lau recently returned from a visit to Peking during which he saw a good deal of Liao and his family over a period of several days. During this time he had one or two discussions tete-a-tete. In these the question of Hong Kong inevitably came up. Edmund Lau says that he explained how confidence, or lack of it, about the future would affect investment decisions and therefore prosperity. Precisely how he put the problem is unclear, as is the question of who took the initiative.

3.

According to Edmund Lau, Liao said that he under- stood the problem. It was necessary to sit down and talk about it, although the time for this would not be right until the latter part of the year when the situation in China would be clearer. In response to my question about what was meant by "sitting down and talking", Edmund Lau said that this meant talking among the Chinese themselves.

However,

he himself had suggested that there ought to be contacts with the British and Liao had given him the impression that he did not rule this out.

4.

None of this is conclusive.

Nor is it necessarily

a completely faithful account of what passed between Lau and Liao. I report it for what it is worth as a possible indication that the Chinese are thinking about the Hong Kong problem seriously. The S of S's current visit to Peking may give us more accurate bearings on both this point and their willingness or otherwise to talk.

(D C Wilson)

сс

RJT McLaren Esq (FED)

M W Atkinson Esq MBE (PEKING)

SECRET

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آمد

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