SECRET
4 It may indeed take some time to get the paper which it is
proposed to hand over absolutely right. But the Acting Governor
will be bringing a first draft with him at the beginning of next
week that gives us some six weeks in which to finalise and clear
it.
Even if it was not possible to get clearance to hand over a
paper at the meeting
the meeting (and we need not commit ourselves to doing so
in advance) there would still be a very strong case for an exchange
between the Secretary of State and Wu in March. It would provide an
invaluable opportunity to explain at ministerial level our general
approach to the 1987 Review; to foreshadow the main themes of the
Green Paper; and to continue the dialogue on other issues related to
the drafting of the Basic Law (notably the Governor and the Chief
Executive on which a paper was
was put to the Chinese in early
December).
Now
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ни re.ant no this?
✓ ✓
5. The Secretary of State asked me to consider what needs to be
done to inform No 10 and the House of Commons about Chinese
anxieties. The attitude of the Chinese to the 1987 Review and
direct elections was analysed at some length in the memorandum which
the Secretary of State put to the Prime Minister and OD (K) in
mid-November. The general analysis still holds good, although there
has been a slight (unhelpful) evolution of Chinese attitudes and the
Leadership changes in Peking now bring a clear risk of greater ✔hostility to any extension of
hostility to any extension of representative government in Hong
Kong. The best time to bring the new developments to the attention of the Prime Minister might be when a draft paper is put to No 10
for clearance.
6. Any briefing of the House of Commons will need to be very
sensitively done. Public statements would be relayed back to Hong
Kong and Peking and could easily be taken amiss in both. I suggest
that we need rather to think in terms of confidential briefing of
MPS directly interested in Hong Kong (a relatively limited number).
This might be done by Mr Renton at
Renton at an informal session shortly
before the publication of the Green Paper in Hong Kong. Depending
on the outcome of the Review it will probably be necessary to repeat the exercise in advance of publication of the White Paper,
perhaps with additional briefing of party spokesmen or senior backbenchers by the Secretary of State himself. This will be a much
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Private notes are available after approval.