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We shall have to continue to live with the suspicion of the Chinese. But it is, I believe, very much in our interest to work to mitigate it by educating who matter in China about the way in which Hong Kong really works.
19.
A third political factor was the concern of the Chinese with appearances. This concern meant that they were not prepared to negotiate a treaty as such with a foreign government about what they regarded as a part of China. It also meant that the detailed arrangements for Hong Kong after 1997 could not be set down in the agreement as the outcome of negotiation although of course that is precisely what they are. These arrangements had to be presented as a gratuitous elaboration of China's own 12 Point Plan. During the negotiation, the Chinese had always taken care to present their responses to our working papers in this form.
20.
The 12 Point Plan itself, which is set out in paragraph 3 of the Joint Declaration, is a remarkable document. You have paid tribute to the statesmanship and imagination which inspired. it in conversations with the Chinese leaders. With the possible exception of Chou En-lai (I use the older, and more familiar, romanisation of his name), I can think of no other Communist leader, or group of leaders, who would have been capable of producing it. But its remarkable character did not mean that the Chinese were at all ready to expand on it, even in their own name. They may have thought, at any rate to begin with, that it would be adequate in itself to sustain confidence in Hong Kong.
In this situation it was consistently uphill work to get them to agree to, and then to agree to record, the detail we were convinced was essential.
21. Technically, the most important factor was that we had to conduct a high speed dialogue among three centres: London, Hong Kong and Peking. The time difference between Peking and London was in fact helpful. We could send reports and recommendations in the evening and receive instructions the following morning. But the lack of any time difference between Peking and Hong Kong made life particularly hard for the Governor and his team there; in the later stages they were often working until 3 or 4 in the morning.
The Achievement
24. In the end, we achieved an agreement which was better than many had expected. On post- 1997 arrangements, it is a good deal more detailed than most had dared hope for. It was often rumoured that Deng Xiaoping had set a limit of 10,000 Chinese characters on the text. It contains
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Redacted under FOI exemption 27(1)(a)(c)(d)
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