CONFIDENTIAL
iii) a press conference.
Briefing
4.
Personality notes on Hong Kong Government officials are at
Annex b and a map of the territory is at Annex c.
5.
The Governor has sent the customary scene-setting telegramme
(Brief No 2). The speech for the lunch with community leaders is
included as Brief No 3. The brief for the meeting with ExCo (Brief
No 4) contains a suggested opening statment and personality notes on
members, and the brief for the meeting with OMELCO (Brief No 5) is similarly arranged. But to avoid duplication, the remaining
material on each individual issue is contained in the subject briefs
which follow, with a clear indication of the interlocutor(s) for
which each part of the Line to Take is designed.
6.
The brief for the press conference (Brief No 21) contains a
first draft of a short opening statement, together with full
supporting material comprising bull points and defensive points.
The Secretary of State will recall that Hong Kong-based journalists
are prone to be aggressive and insistent in their questioning.
Issues
1.
The visit comes at a time when our relations with China over
Hong Kong are freer from friction than relations between London and
Hong Kong. The decisions contained in the White Paper on
representative government came as a considerable relief to the
Chinese. Over the past months they have generally been at pains to
convey in public an impression of harmony with ourselves over Hong
Kong, and to make statements designed to boost local confidence.
private there have been minor disagreements, for example over the
propriety of Parliament debating the Basic Law; but the general
atmosphere of our exchanges (for example during Wu Xueqian's visit
to London in March) has been very good.
The perception of this relationship in Hong Kong is ambivalent. There is relief that Anglo-Chinese relations are so
8.
In
CONFIDENTIAL
No comments yet.
Private notes are available after approval.