TNAG-1411-FCO40-1887-Future-of-Hong-Kong--Hong-Kong-a-Change-of-Destiny---despatc-1985 — Page 61

CONFIDENTIAL

6.

were active in spreading knowledge of their intention to recover sovereignty over Hong Kong in 1997 with Hong Kong given a special status within China which would allow the essentials of the Hong Kong system to remain. The lack of any precision in this "plan" and of any assurance that it would be binding on future Chinese Governments gave it little credence in the eyes of the Hong Kong public. They knew, as much by instinct as by analysis, that generalised declarations of China's good intent were not an adequate substitute for the link of authority with Britain. The people of Hong Kong attached little

importance to the formal notions of sovereignty. They were prepared to see HMG recognise Chinese sovereignty over Hong Kong (and indeed as Chinese sympathised with the Chinese position on sovereignty) provided that that recognition could be exchanged for a continuation of British administration.

13.

The pursuit of that objective had to be HMG's first aim. The likelihood of the Chinese accepting it was not high: but they had acquiesced in British administration since 1949. Although they had stressed that recognition of Chinese sovereignty was essential to any settlement, to this point they had not said in terms that sovereignty and administration were indivisable. In any case no other solution would have been accepted in Hong Kong until that possibility had been tested to its absolute limit.

14.

A substantial number of papers on how Hong Kong worked and the importance of the British connection were accordingly prepared and presented to the Chinese over a long series of meetings. The aim was to educate the Chinese in the realities. of how Hong Kong worked. It was also to draw the Chinese towards an arrangement under which, if they would accept the continuation of British administration for some unspecified period after 1997, HMG would concede that formal sovereignty

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