TNAG-1871-FCO40-2659-Relations-between-Hong-Kong-and-China-1989 — Page 50

CONFIDENTIAL

The Rt Hon Sir Geoffrey Howe QC MP Secretary of State for

Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs Foreign and Commonwealth Office LONDON SW1

Sir,

ANNUAL REVIEW: CHINA 1988

British Embassy

PEKING

16 January 1989

1.

Last November, the campus authorities at a university in Nanjing built a wall to control access to the African students' quarters. The students demolished it brick by brick and were fined for it. On Christmas Eve, a further incident stemming from the checking of Chinese girlfriends at a dance organised by the mainly African foreign student body sparked off days of demonstrations. The international publicity embarrassed the Chinese Government which boasts of its Afro-Asian solidarity and its cooperation with the Third World. These incidents and the handling of dissidents in Tibet during 1988, illustrate the kind of problems the Chinese face in continuing their policies of relaxing social controls, reform and the "Open Door". The theories of the Chinese leadership so often collide with the practice of stubborn, conservative officials who have to work among people who are backward and ill-educated. About a fifth of China's vast population, half of whom are under 21, are still illiterate. Only around two million out of over a billion currently receive formal university education. It is not easy to tune national or provincial policies finely with this low level of trained human resources.

CONFIDENTIAL

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