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12. Mr Du Cann thanked Mr Yao for his answers, and said that his delegation, like the British Ambassador and his staff, would continue to work to find practical ways of building up the trade and the practical cooperation between Britian and China. We had no serious political problems, with the exception of our common responsibility to agree on a solution for the long term future of Hong Kong. Mr Du Cann said he was aware that Lord Carrington and Mr Humphrey Atkins raised this matter with the Chinese leaders recently but he wanted to tell the Vice Premier of his belief that it would be useful to begin talks on this problem in very good time. As the English proverb says, "a stitch in time saves nine". Both countries derived considerable advantages from Hong Kong in terms of economic opportunities; we had to build up a wider measure of agreement and cooperation between Britain and China starting on the firm basis which already existed.
13. The meeting lasted for an hour and 15 minutes.
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