TNAG-1156-FCO40-1436-Visits-by-FCO-Ministers-to-Hong-Kong-1982 — Page 134

Mr Donald

PS/LPS

CONFIDENTIAL Mr. McQuake

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Mr. William Mr. Mai

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Research Department.

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Cabinet Office, Assessment:

Staff

VISIT OF THE LPS TO CHINA AND KOREA

1.

attached

I submit Sir P Cradock's despatch of 14 January on the visit of the Lord Privy Seal to China (4-8 January), and Mr Morgan's despatch of 15 January on the visit to Koreą (10-13 January). I have acknowledged both despatches.

2.

attached

I agree with Sir P Cradock that the visit to China was successful and useful. Vice Foreign Minister Zhang Canming is not a sparkling interlocutor, but the LPS's talks with him,

Vice Premier Ji and Premier Zhao, served as a useful reminder

of the breadth of the ground we share with the Chinese on many international questions. The exchange may also have had a

reassuring and steadying influence on Chinese thinking during a period of uncertainty about US intentions.

3.

Action arising out of the exchanges with Chinese leaders on the future of Hong Kong, and on the detail of the Prime Minister's plans to visit China in September, is in hand separately.

4.

As Mr Morgan's despatch makes clear, the LPS was

welcomed particularly effusively and at the highest level in

Korea. With a number of important commercial deals and defence sales in prospect, the visit of a British Cabinet Minister to this very status-conscious (and often neglected)

country was of especial value.

25 January 1982

Markshisht

Mark Elliott

Far Eastern Department

CONFIDENTIAL