TNAG-1243-FCO40-1557-Future-of-Hong-Kong-1983 — Page 103

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THE ORIGINAL HAS BEEN RETAINED

IN THE DEPARTMENT UNDER

SECTION 3 (4) OF THE PUBLIC RECORDS ACT 1958

Chinese Objectives

4.

i)

These appear to be:

to put pressure on the British Government to make concessions in

the talks;

ii) to persuade public opinion in Hong Kong that a reversion of sovereignty and administrative control to China in 1997 was inevitable and workable.

5.

There is no evidence to suggest any Chinese involvement so far in more active measures of agitation or subversion designed to foment unrest or erode confidence, beyond the use of "united front" propaganda on a large scale.

Likely future developments

6.

We have no evidence

relating to

Chinese contingency planning in the event of a breakdown of the talks. The following analysis is thus no more than a best guess of possible Chinese tactics.

7. In the event of breakdown (or even if talks continued but with no progress being made) we could expect to see the launching of a renewed and much more intense Chinese propaganda campaign designed to blame British intransigence both for the breakdown and for an ensuing slump in confidence; to reassert the justice of the Chinese case; and to claim that this case had the support of the Hong Kong

people.

8.

The immediate Chinese objective would probably be to bring the

British Government back to the negotiating table on Chinese terms.

The Chinese would seek to ensure that this could be presented as a

concession to the rightness of the Chinese cause.

Agitation

9.

Such a propaganda campaign might be accompanied by measures of agitation designed to promote uncertainty and anxiety among the

population of Hong Kong. To start with the objective would probably be to step up pressure on the British Government rather than to

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