TNAG-1224-FCO40-1537-Visits-to-the-UK-by-official-and-unofficial-members-of-the-E-1983 — Page 168

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14 April 1983

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PSINAD A GRAPY NO. 51

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2 3 APR 1983

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BISTRY Action Tak

Future of Hong Kong: Possible Visit by EXCO Unofficials

C12514

At the meeting on 9 March with Sir Edward Youde and Sir Percy Cradock the Prime Minister agreed that it would be useful if the Governor were to bring a group of Unofficials to London again before too long.

The Governor has now proposed (Hong Kong telegram number 478, copy enclosed) that he should invite all nine EXCO Unofficials to accompany him since it would be difficult to exclude some of them. He makes it clear that such a visit would not take place before the Chinese reply to the Prime Minister's message to Premier Zhao, but he hopes it could happen before June when a Chinese announcement is expected.

We welcome the idea of such a visit in principle, since it is clearly most important from the Hong Kong end that EXCO are seen to be closely consulted and kept in the picture, not just by the Governor but also by Ministers in London. We also agree that an attempt to bring a smaller party might create difficulties for both the Governor and for Sir S Y Chung, the Senior Unofficial.

However it is difficult to be definite at this stage over the timing. With Zhao Ziyang away in Australia and New Zealand until late April we may well not get a Chinese reply until the end of April or into May. If the reply is a favourable one, enabling us to get down to substantive talks, both we and EXCO might want to see how the talks went for a while and then have a meeting in London to discuss developments including a Chinese announcement. We should avoid having two high powered visits too close together. If on the other hand the Chinese reply is unhelpful it would probably be right to have an earlier EXCO visit, which could discuss among other things the way in which we should respond to a tougher Chinese announcement.

In short, we believe that we should not try to reach any conclusion yet on dates. Nonetheless we see no reason why the Governor should not be instructed to tell EXCO, strictly for their information only, that he has been in touch with those concerned about the possibility of taking Unofficials to London at some point in the next two or three months, and that this idea has been welcomed by Ministers in principle. If the

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