TNAG-1342-FCO40-17722-Visit-by-Margaret-Thatcher--UK-Prime-Minister--to-Beijing-fo-1984 — Page 21

Transcript by

JAMES LEE of:

BANQUET SPEECH BY THE PRIME MINISTER, MRS. THATCHER,

IN PEKING, ON WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 19, 1984.

Your Excellency Premier Zhao Ziyang, Your Excellencies, Ladies

and Gentlemen:

First, may I thank you, Premier Zhao Ziyang, for that

toast and for the excellent speech in which you proposed it.

It is a privilege and a great pleasure for me to be

visiting China for a third time in seven years. Each visit,

as you said, Premier Zhao Ziyang, has been all too short, but

each visit has made a deep impression on me.

This visit has a special importance, because it marks

an historic achievement, that achievement with our signature

this afternoon on the Joint Declaration on Hong Kong.

In

our

my speech at the signature ceremony, I described the

significance which we attach to the Joint Declaration;

determination to make a success of it; and the firm basis

which it lays down for the growth and prosperity of Hong Kong's

unique society into the middle of the 21st century. I expressed

my conviction that the people of Hong Kong would rise to the

challenge that lies ahead of them.

The world can draw a lesson from the successful outcome

of our joint enterprise: that determined negotiation can

succeed where confrontation would surely lead to disaster;

that