TNAG-1245-FCO40-1559-Press-reports-on-the-future-of-Hong-Kong-1983 — Page 6

Hong Kong/World at One/30/6/83

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have certainly improved the situation and got things moving.

Interviewer: What will happen now? Will direct negotiations start up?

Davis:

They have already started. The contacts are taking

place in Peking which is the main negotiating position but also in

London,

Interviewer: What about the timetable for handing Hong Kong back

to the Chinese? It was reported in Newsweek magazine not more than a couple of weeks ago that the Chinese wanted the whole thing

settled before the end of next year and if Mrs Thatcher didn't come

up with a solution acceptable to them they would impose a settlement.

Davis:

-

That report was completely inaccurate. It said that

the Premier had made that demand to Mrs Thatcher which was absolutely

wrong. It is certainly true that the Chinese have indicated then and since their desire for a swift agreement to agree in other words that the two parties would hammer out an agreement about the future of Hong Kong in the next couple of years, by the end of 84.

is one of the deadlines that has been mentioned. But without any

threats about Chinese freedom to take unilateral action thereafter.

Richard Bough then asked the former Foreign Secretary, Lord

Carrington, why he thought that Mrs Thatcher appeared to be changing her mind on the issue of Hong Kong's future.

Carrington: I don't think that Mrs Thatcher has changed her

views on this at all. There is obviously a difference between the

status of Hong Kong island and the new territories. But then one

has to consider the viability and all the rest of it and the possibility of getting a settlement. If you look at the future

of Hong Kong - the

necessarily

•

•

two things that are really necessary. are not

British interests. The first thing is the

future for the four and a half million people who live in Hong Kong and who are our responsibility because we have adminsitered it

,་"""་".

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