Final version of 199
Mr Wood
Mr Stone
R128
062/1
HKC062
From: J D K Grant
202
News Department
Date: 21 August 1989
cc: PS/Mr Maude
Mr Gillmore
Mr McLaren
Miss Marsden (HKD)
Private Secretary
HONG KONG/CHINA: PLA IN HONG KONG
1.
The Secretary of State has asked (for instance, your minute of 16 August) about press coverage of our attitude to the stationing of Chinese troops in Hong Kong after 1997.
2. This issue was firmly established on our public agenda by Sir Geoffrey Howe in his statement to the House on 5 July when he said that "we shall take up with the Chinese Government two matters
of special concern
and, even more important, the question of the stationing in Hong Kong of Chinese military forces." This was said against the background of the declaration of intent in that statement that "It is of the first importance that the Chinese Government take early, tangible and sustained action to begin restoring confidence in China's intentions towards Hong Kong. shall be pressing them strongly on this".
We
3. Press reports of the Secretary of State's meeting with the Chinese Foreign Minister on 30 July in Paris made clear that the Secretary of State had raised the stationing of troops with his opposite number. Those reports also underlined the importance he attached to China taking action to restore confidence.
4. Although we have chosen our words carefully in talking to the press, our line has only really been susceptible to the interpretation that we hoped the Chinese would, at least, restrict the basis on which PLA troops were to be stationed. Thus, when a Chinese official was reported as saying that troops would be based
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