TNAG-1342-FCO40-17722-Visit-by-Margaret-Thatcher--UK-Prime-Minister--to-Beijing-fo-1984 — Page 78

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STAY

1 @ DEC 1984

CONFIDENTIAL

FROM:

Mark Elliott

288

429

Чил

Cra 17/

REGISTRY

Far Eastern Department

Action Taken

DATE:

6 December 1984

1

cc:

PS

Multum

Mr Galsworthy, HKD

Sir P Cradock

Dr Wilson

Mr Orr/Mr Ashton

PRIME MINISTER'S VISIT TO CHINA AND HONG KONG:

1.

BRIEFING

I should record the guidance from No 10 which I passed on to you this morning after speaking to Mr Ricketts about the format and timing of the briefing for the forthcoming visit.

2.

No 10 have arranged for a briefing meeting at 1600 on Wednesday 12 December (such meetings are normally attended by Ministers and sometimes officials down to DUS but the Secretary of State will not be able to be there for more than a short time). This affects the earlier instruction that briefs need not be submitted until the evening of Thursday 13 December.

3.

No 10 have asked that the briefing should be divided into:

a) checklists of Points to Make for individual conversations,

in as skeletal a form as possible;

b) a set of full background materal.

Of these, No 10 have asked that at least the checklists and the steering brief should reach No 10 before the Wednesday briefing meeting. Mr Ricketts has asked that they be submitted to the Private Office by the late afternoon of Tuesday 11 December.

4. FED will draft the steering brief for the visit to Peking and will put together the checklists for the calls on Deng, Zhao and Hu. We agreed that the Hong Kong contribution to the briefing for the Hu call would be minimal and we shall put something in our draft and clear it with you. We shall need to look together at the shape of the checklists for Zhao and Deng. It may be that we cannot put them into any sort of final form together until the morning of Tuesday 11 December because of the Hong Kong debate on the previous day.

5. Mr Ricketts did not specifically mention the briefing for the Hong Kong visit. You may like to check with him whether it should follow the same pattern.

Малолиста

Mark Elliott

Far Eastern Department

CONFIDENTIAL