TNAG-1478-FCO40-2010-Visit-by-Sir-Geoffrey-Howe--Secretary-of-State-for-Foreign-a-1986 — Page 5

Mr Hervey

CONFIDENTIAL

FROM:

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D C Wilson

12 December 1986

PS/PUS

Mr Gillmore

Mr Hum

Mr Adams

Mr Masefield News Dept

SECRETARY OF STATE'S OVERSEAS VISITS 1987: WHITSUN

1. You will be wishing to respond to the Private Secretary's minute of 8 December to Miss Waghorn about the Secretary of State's Whitsun travel plans. My comments are as follows.

2. I strongly agree that the Secretary of State, as well as visiting Tokyo during the Whitsun recess, should include a short stop-over in Peking. 1987 will be an extremely delicate year for our discussions with the Chinese over Hong Kong. We may well need contacts between the Secretary of State and Wu Xueqian. The Far East visit would provide a good opportunity for discussions without all the publicity which a special visit to Peking from London would attract.

3. I am also inclined to agree that a further stop-over in Hong Kong would be less desirable. We cannot yet assess what the implications of the appointment of a new Governor would be. But it is already clear that a Hong Kong visit by the Secretary of State would carry a number of disadvantages:-

4.

i) he would be badgered with questions on a planned 1987 Review of representative government, direct elections, etc. He would be in no position to answer satisfactorily;

ii) if the new Governor had only recently arrived it

would be preferable that he should be allowed to establish himself locally before playing host to a high-profile ministerial visit;

iii) Hong Kong would be reinforced in its feeling that

a visit by the Secretary of State to Peking should necessarily be followed by a stop-over in Hong Kong at which he gave an account of himself. It is time to begin weaning Hong Kong away from that belief.

Unless the appointment of a new Governor brings new and unforeseen considerations to the fore, I would recommend that the Secretary of State should leave Peking without passing through HongKong, and instead visit another Asian destination. A possible candidate would be the Philippines where a visit by the Secretary of State would be a good way of bolstering support for Mrs Aquino and reinforcing our improved relations with the Philippines Government. We should however have to keep an eye on the relationship of the visit with the timing of local elections.

CONFIDENTIAL

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