TNAG-1307-FCO40-1664-Future-of-Hong-Kong-1984 — Page 132

SECRET

FROM: PAB Thomson

Far Eastern Department

31 January 1984

DATE:

cd:

PS

Sir Percy Cradock Mr Donald

FICKOTO/1

RECEIVED IN REGISTRY

2rED 1984

{

DESK OFFICER INDEX

PLUSTRY

PA

Action Taken

Mr Clift,

Sir Ian Sinclair News Department

67

PS/Mr Luce

FUTURE OF HONG KONG:

65

A 1.

we

wk

E

2.

CHIO/2

CHINESE RELIABILITY

Your minute of 30 January asked for:

a) my reaction to comments that the Government of the

PRC have consistently failed to honour international agreements;

b) specific comments on events in Shanghai and Tibet

after 1949; and

c) advice on the line Ministers might take in dealing

with these questions.

See 78

On (a) I can do no better than to refer you to a note on the Chinese general record prepared by Research Department last October. A copy is attached at Flag A. On (b) a recent minute also from Research Department summarises the sequence of events in Shanghai and explains the differences between the situation there post 1949 and the circumstances of the current Hong Kong negotiations. A copy is attached at Flag B. Tibet is mentioned in the last paragraph of the note on the general record at Flag A, where the point is made that in the Chinese view the 1950 document providing inter alia for the preservation of the Dalai Lama's functions and powers (copy attached at Flag C; again my thanks to Research Department) was not an international agreement, being made with the "local Government of Tibet". I would only add that the most serious violations occurred in the years after the Tibetan rebellion of 1959, as Deng Xiaping implied to Lord Carrington in 1981.

3. As to (c) I recommend (and HKD agree) that Ministers might reflect the main points that emerge from the papers at Flags A and B, viz:

a) China's record of observance of the great majority of

the treaties she has signed is good;

b) in Shanghai in the 1950s the Chinese were in the first flush of their revolutionary success and enthusiasm for building a new state. Moreover they had given no specific undertakings or guarantees for the arrangements they would, institute there;

SECRET

/c)