TNAG-1313-FCO40-1688-Future-of-Hong-Kong-views-and-involvement-of-Australia--Cana-1984 — Page 238

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(a) Taiwan: Hu claimed that the PRC was hopeful of making

some sort of productive contact with the Taiwan regime, many of whose members wanted to renew their family contacts on the PRC mainland. However, as yet there was no reciprocity from Taiwan on the proposal of facilitating visits nor had the Kuomintang discontinued their practice of referring to the PRC leaders as "bandits", despite the new PRC policy of referring to the Taiwan leaders correctly and politely. Hu said that the PRC was dis- appointed that the USA had not yet made any significant move to scale down arms supplies to Taiwan. This factor remained a problem in PRC-US relationships but would not affect PRC efforts to open a bilateral dialogue with Taiwan. The PRC asked only that the US should not interfere with any such dialogue.

(b) Soviet Threat: Hu agreed that no agreement had been made

on the US proposal for closer US-PRC cooperation against the Soviet threat. He said that the PRC still regarded the Soviets as a threat. None of the three (arguably four) pre-requisites for better PRC-USSR relations had yet been agreed to by the Soviets. Hu said that the PRC perception is that the PRC must take its own steps to counter the Soviets. Cooperation with the US was not a practical proposition because the PRC had had "experience of dealing with the USA" and in any case the following current con- siderations made cooperation unrealistic:

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(i) the Reagan administration had over-extended itself

on its anti-Soviet activites, and had become "hegemonistic". (interestingly Hu could not see that, if this argument was correct, it therefore made sense for the US to seek additional allies);

(ii) the PRC did not approve of US policies in Latin

America even although these were based to a large extent on anti-Soviet considerations;

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(iii) the PRC did not approve of the deployment, of

Cruise and Pershing missiles in Europe. This,

he said, only served to exacerbate Soviet aggres- sion and counter-measures. We explained that these new missiles did not add to, but rather. replaced and updated, obsolete weapons;

(iv) there was an unnecessary difference of view between

the PRC and the US about supporting Pol Pot in Cambodia. Hu said that the PRC had no intention of re-installing a Pol Pot regime but it made sense to use his firepower in the jointly agreed objective of unseating the Vietnamese surrogates in Cambodia;

(v) Taiwan of course remained a problem so long as the US continued to supply arms to the Kuomintang.

/ 5. Hu

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