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29
pa Ruars
Private Secretary
FROM: PA Major
Hong Kong Department
DATE: 4 May 1990
#KCOCO/4 HICCOLO
REC
11 MAY 1990
cc: PS/Mr Maude
Mr Gillmore
Mr McLaren
Special Advisers (2)
Mr Davies, FED
record attended above.
Miyo Major
als
SECRETARY OF STATE'S MEETING WITH ROBERT ADLEY MP, 8 MAY: HONG KONG
1. I submit points to make, based on issues Mr Adley has raised in
correspondence with the Secretary of State and Mr Maude and in the
House. I have added a bull point about the Goddess of Democracy.
2.
Mr Adley's starting point is that Hong Kong's future lies
with China and it cannot be in Hong Kong's interest to antagonise
the Chinese. He considers the Joint Declaration an excellent
agreement (and has been supportive about Government policy in the
past). But he believes we and Hong Kong have overreacted to the
June events in Peking and that our initiatives since then, in
particular the Nationality Bill and the move towards greater
democracy, represent breaches of the spirit if not the letter of the
Joint Declaration. The reaction this inevitably draws from China
will only compound damage to Hong Kong confidence. Mr Adley also
objects to what he calls deliberate aggravation of the Chinese: in
A November he criticised a speech by Mr Barrie Wiggham (a Hong Kong
Government official); and more recently he wrote to the Secretary of
State about Mr Maude's comments on the "Today" programme of 6 April.
B
4. Mr Adley visited China with a group of MPs in late 1989. His
attitude to Hong Kong and Hong Kong Government is somewhat
ambivalent. We understand that there was an incident in the early
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