TNAG-1239-FCO40-1552-Future-of-Hong-Kong-1983 — Page 61

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b) Population (para 17): we are already in correspondence

with the ODA and others about the implications of the new official policy of enforced sterilisation. China's problems over population control surely qualify the

'almost total success' which the reformists claim for the new agricultural policies (para 16).

c) Foreign policy (paras 25-28): we think that Mr Ehrman

rather under-estimates the importance of Zhao Ziyang's positive reference to China's relations with Western Europe and the West generally. This seems to represent a renewed emphasis by the Chinese on relations with the West, by comparison with Hu Yaobang's report to the 12th Party Congress in September 1982 which made no such reference.

d) New Vice Premiers (para 33): because of the Guangdong

nuclear project we have had a good deal of contact with Li Peng.

We know that the Chinese were pleased with the high level of treatment which HMG gave him during his visit here in January. Tian Jiyun was due to accompany Chen Muhua on her UK visit in the spring but he had to withdraw at the last moment.

· 4. The most striking internal development since the Congress, has been the publication of Deng Xiaoping's Selected Works, ie a set of his speeches since 1975. The Chinese media have been full of sycophantic praise which has set off disagreeable echoes of the personality cults of the past. The reformists evidently feel that their overriding need is to have a clear normative basis for the Party rectification movement about to begin. We have not yet read Deng's opus, but our impression is that it fails to offer any resolution of the contradiction between, on the one hand, the slogans of seeking truth from facts and making practice the criterion of truth and, on the other hand, dogma such as the insistence on the Communist Party's control. Deng says: 'we must deal with all wrong things, and we must touch all rumps, whether that of a 60-year old tiger or that of a 40-year old tiger or that of a 30 or 20-year old tiger.' Wei Jingsheng and other dissidents tried at their peril to touch Deng Xiaoping's rump. Now, in a different context, it is our turn to try to wean him away from dogma.

5. Mr Walker, Research Dept, has not yet seen these papers and may wish to comment further. I have sent a brief acknowledgement to Sir P Cradock and will write more fully in due course.

19 July 1983

CONFIDENTIAL

Mark Chick

Mark Elliott

Far Eastern Dept