TNAG-1344-FCO40-1774-Despatch-from-Sir-Richard-Evans--British-Ambassador-to-China-1986 — Page 27

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Faced with a choice she would always have opted for national reunification at the expense of continued prosperity and

never the reverse.

15. The Chinese were not bound to negotiate with us. They

could, as they sometimes reminded us, have decided to recover

Hong Kong and resume the exercise of sovereignty over it by

unilateral action. Why then did they decide to negotiate?

There were, I think, three reasons. First, they judged that a negotiated recovery of Hong Kong would increase the chances in the long term of peaceful reunification with Taiwan. Secondly,

they calculated that a negotiated recovery was far more likely

to ensure the territory's continued prosperity (and with it

China's very sizeable foreign exchange earnings from Hong Kong).

Thirdly, they wanted to build up the international reputation

of China as a country which favoured the negotiated settlement

of territorial problems.

16. But the commitment to negotiate, even if it became stronger

over time, was never absolute. There were fruits which a

negotiation would have to yield: a commitment by us to "restore"

Hong Kong; and, once this seemed attainable, a commitment by us

to consult the Chinese within a formal framework and from an

early date about the smooth transfer of government. Without these fruits, unilateral action (by which I mean in the first

instance the public declaration by China of her policies in relation to Hong Kong) would have been preferred.

Shape of the Negotiation

17. The shape of the process of discussion and negotiation

was determined by several factors, political and technical.

One of the political factors was the attitude of the Chinese

towards the participation of Hong Kong. There were two related

elements in this: that Hong Kong could not be a party to the

process and that Hong Kong could not be represented by the

British Government. What this attitude meant in practice was

that the Governor and his Political Adviser had to be members

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