CONFIDENTIAL
Redacted
under FOI exemption 27(1)(a)(c)(d)
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
dialogue among three centres:
- conduct a high speed
London, Hong Kong and Peking. The time difference between Peking and London was in fact helpful. We could send reports and recom- mendations 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.
CONFIDELE
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