TNAG-1622-FCO40-2236-Relations-between-Hong-Kong-and-China-1987 — Page 186

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I recalled John Boyd's visit in 1985 and Yu Guanglu's

visit to Hong Kong in 1986 and said that I was glad to be

keeping up the contact. I said that we should have more visits

to and fro. To my slight surprise, Chen emphatically agreed. John Boyd's note of his 1985 visit records that the Fujianese

were very coy with him on this point. The problem is that they are not authorized to have direct dealings with us in the way

that Guangdong is (as Ji and Ren Ziyu both told me in our

conversations on child illegals which I have recorded

separately).

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10.

Chen was the only senior official I met on the whole

trip who wore a Mao suit. I do not know what his practice was before Hu Yaobang's fall. From 1983 to 1986 he worked in Hong Kong as General Manager of Fujian Enterprises. I would put him in his early fifties.

11.

Other Personalities. The other most significant officials I met were Zhuang Nanfang, Deputy Secretary General and Director of the General Office of the provincial

government, and Ren Ziyu, Deputy Director of the Foreign

Affairs Office.

Both accompanied Governor Hu Ping on his visit

Zhuang is a jolly but rather insubstantial

his portfolio focusses on external economic

to UK in 1985.

Fujianese;

relations. Probably in his late fifties. He probably

understands some English but does not seem to speak it. Ren is

a Shanghainese (born in Hebei) smoothie. I instinctively took agin him. He is pleased with himself, and looks down on the

likes of Zhuang, who outranks him. He does not look his

interlocutor in the eye. His English is fairly good.

12.

I also met a Deputy Commissioner of Jianyang prefecture (where Wu Yi Shan is) called Zhu Degui. An uninspiring man from Yangzhou who had been in Fujian for thirty

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