TNAG-1145-FCO40-1425-Relations-between-Hong-Kong-and-Macau-1982 — Page 75

CONFIDENTIAL

Reference

Mrs Dean

Research Department

HKR 02013

G 60/4

MACAO

1.

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Be Enter

with Ms Dean's te

a

to me

minte

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4/8

Your minute of 29 July covering a most useful draft paper. My only gomments are:

..

as

(a) in paragraph 3 it now seems rather misleading to say China has shown no interest in taking back Macao and is clearly satisfied with the status quo'. The continued Portuguese colonial presence is emotionally offensive to the Chinese and they would like to take back Macao as they can do so without writing the death warrant for the golden goose of Hong Kong. You might perhaps add 'so far' before 'shown no interest' and 'for the time being' before 'clearly satisfied'. Again Huang Hua's remarks in Lisbon about maintaining the status quo clearly applied only to the relatively short-term;

(b)

In paragraph 7 there might be advantage in amplifying what we know of the Sino/Portuguese understanding in 1979 over Macao's status. This could perhaps best be done by drawing on Mr George's (Peking) teleletter of 30 July 1979 to Mr Samuel (FED) which indicated that the Portuguese had resisted a public acknowledgement but given a private oral acknowledgement that sovereignty over Macao rightfully belonged to China;

(c) paragraph 8: although in 1980 the Chinese clearly opposed greater democracy and self-government for the people of Macao I think we must be cautious about implying that this is still their position. Their thinking about Hong Kong now seems to envisage a kind of 'Singapore within China' solution; the obvious place for a trial run would be Macao.

3 August 1982

Кох.

N J Cox

Cc: Mr Morris, HKGD (WH 312)

CODE 18-77

CONFIDENTIAL

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Far Eastern Department

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