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12.
The Chinese wish to recover Taiwan, more important to them
even than Hong Kong, is often adduced as a factor in our favour.
To some extent it is: if Chinese recovery of Hong Kong provoked
economic failure there it would be a public fiasco which would
dispel any remaining illusions in Taiwan about reunification with
the motherland. But for reasons given above, the Chinese leaders
do not believe Hong Kong will go wrong or that confidence will
disappear; and any doubts they may feel on this score are probably
outweighed by what they see as the political benefits of a public
demonstration of national will and ability to lay hands on some
piece of terra irredenta.
13.
One other aspect of Chinese policy calls for comment: their
habit of speaking publicly in the course of a negotiation that,
by agreement, is secret. There are, I think, two broad explanations.
First, they assert a right to communicate directly with their
compatriots in Hong Kong and no doubt see this as a mean of
bringing pressure on them and outflanking the British position.
They have also encouraged a series of deputations from Hong Kong
who, overawed by their surroundings or out of a desire to please,
have rarely said anything out of line with what their hosts wanted
to hear. The second reason, I think, is that the Chinese do not
regard Hong Kong as a proper subject for negotiation with a
foreign power. The land, as they see it, is theirs and it remains
only for them to make their decisions known. Public statements by
them in the course of the negotiations demonstrate this view and
also, no doubt, strike Chinese leaders like Deng as a kind of
poetic justice for the dictation their ancestors had to submit to
from the British in the 19th century.
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