TNAG-2345-FCO40-3412-Future-of-Chinese-Ministry-of-Foreign-Affairs-office-in-Hong-1991 — Page 2

British Embassy

CONFIDENTIAL

11 Guang Hua Lu Jian Guo Men Wai

Peking People's Republic of China

Telex 22191 Cable Prodrome Peking Telephone 521961/2/3/4/5

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24/10

N J Cox Esq

Hong Kong Department

F CO

Der Nigel,

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} OCT 1991

CHINESE MFA OFFICE IN HONG KONG

•

Your reference

Our reference

Date

16 September 1991

Mr Riorda

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1 In your letter of 5 September to Tony Galsworthy you asked about offices of the CPG in the provinces and provincial offices in Peking. We have not seen your letter of 12 August to UKREP

JLG.

2. Before going into detail on our experience of offices in Peking, it might be as well to make some cautionary remarks about the relevance of this experience for Hong Kong.

(a) Hong Kong, under the terms of the JD, is set to have vastly more real autonomy than any autonomous region in China;

(b) the other autonomous regions were set up to provide a veneer of self-rule for races who had the misfortune not to be Han Chinese. Despite heavy Han immigration into Inner Mongolia and Xinjiang, that rationale still prevails. Even allowing for natural tensions between Cantonese and Northern Chinese, the problem of racial conflict does not arise;

(c) the autonomous areas are generally under-developed both administratively and economically (the pattern is obviously changing in Xinjiang and Inner Mongolia where in certain localities heavy industry is now well established with more to come in Xinjiang on the petrochemical front). But in general terms these areas still lag well behind the advanced industrial areas of East China and the capital;

(d) the formal structures are of course reinforced by Party networks. Even in the formal structures the Chinese Government still practices the principle of rotation in a conscious effort to prevent senior figures being too closely identified with local interests Personnel policy is as important in trying to maintain subordination of provincial or autonomous region governments to Peking as are the formal lines of authority;

CONFIDENTIAL

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