TNAG-1404-FCO40-1879-Future-of-Hong-Kong-National-People-s-Congress-1985 — Page 3

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J N Powell Esq

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British Embassy

PEKING

15 April 1985

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Dear Jonathan,

HONG KONG. NATIONAL PEOPLE'S CONGRESS (NPC)

1.

F

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As promised in paragraph 11 of Peking telegram number -484 I now enclose the full text of Wu Xueqian's speech of

3 April submitting the Joint Declaration to the NPC for their examination and approval. It is, as you will see (perhaps with some relief), in Chinese only. The People's Daily report sent to you in TUR covered almost the entire contents of the speech. The only points which did not appear in the People's Daily were:

2.

a.

b.

c.

that Hong Kong, including Hong Kong island, Kowloon, and the "New Territories" had been a part of sacred Chinese territory since ancient times;

that the recovery of Hong Kong and the protection of the nation's unity and territorial integrity had been the common wish for more than a hundred years of all the descendants of the Yellow Emperor at home and abroad; and

that Premier Zhao Ziyang had stated explicitly at the last NPC on 15 May 1984 that the reunification of the motherland and the rebuilding of China were sacred tasks entrusted (to the current Chinese leadership) by history and that it was a firm and unshakeable policy decision to recover the exercise of sovereignty over Hong Kong in 1997.

Nothing we didn't already know.

ever,

Yours

Tom

T W M Smith Second Secretary

cc.

R P Margolis Esq, DPA, Hong Kong

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