TNAG-1040-FCO40-1290-Future-of-Hong-Kong-1981 — Page 232

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to the Chinese; perhaps about the end of this year

or early in the New Year).

3.

Apart from the handling of the paper, we shall

1

need to develop over the next few months a clear idea

of what the Prime Minister might say to Chinese leaders While we must accept that

aecepting that very probably we would not by then have

the

тобу

reached 2 2 stage at which it would be appropriate to

pursuan

the options in the paper

paper

We must accept

-Mas. Thatches that it will in any case be necessary for her to

say something on the subject and the Chinese will need

to be alerted to this, say in June or July in order

to give them time to think things through. It would

be very helpful to have Percy's and your views in due

course on the substance of the approach which the

jo

We should also cononder how to Prime Minister might make and in particular how we

minimise the risk of heightened expectations of

her visit followed by a fairly deadpan Chinese response

?

leading to damaged confidence in Hong Kong.

4.

In the longer term we would also be grateful

if

both of you could fill out the ideas in the

latter part of the paper on the tactical way in

which we might approach the Chinese if confidence in

Hong Kong did begin to slide. We are of course, very,

conscious that we cannot predict how the situation

will look, much less how the Chinese might react

at the time to any of the proposals we have aired.

Ir

Indeed it is quite likely that we would end up

with a result very different from any of those which

But in any case we

we have considered. But this does mean that we have

get to be very careful to strike a balance between

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/going