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public reaction and I knew of no politically motivated opposition to Chinese civil nuclear power. Could Li give me any leads? He said no. He hoped in a general way though that more could be done. Could we if visiting scientists came through, stimulate them to say sensible things? Additionally the organisers of the Chinese civil nuclear programme would always be very happy to take advice from British experts. I said as general point that maintenance of a nuclear power station was as important as building it. On his suggestions, it was a pity that Lord Todd was currently out of town. He would hardly have needed prompting by the NCNA or anyone else! But they would have noted the things said on TV by Bill Stones. On consultancies, Li only had to talk to my colleague the Trade Commissioner, also on the boat, he had quite a stable - for a fee. (Li said he had been hoping for free advice!).
Taiwan
6.
In turn I asked Li about the aircraft. He reiterated NCNA's thanks to HKG. He assured me categorically that the Chinese had had no advance warning about Wang's defection. But the event having happened they had tried to handle it reasonably. The Taiwan negotiators had been constructive and relaxed. They were obviously under public pressure from their own side but in private (responding to my question) they had, to a remarkable extent, spoken the same language. This was not necessarily reflected in public Taiwan statements later but the Chinese understood the problems of their colleagues when they got home.
7.
Li did not want to exaggerate the consequences of the episode.
But with the growth of mainland/Taiwan contacts there were bound to be more such episodes, and both sides had now devised a useful model for resolving them. Hong Kong had shown itself as the best place to handle them. Li assessed the public reaction here to the transaction as positive. Meanwhile things were afoot in Taiwan on which he did not profess to be
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