TNAG-2487-FCO40-3618-Future-relations-between-Hong-Kong-and-China-1992 — Page 83

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an

on the Chinese than the British side. Since important foreign

affairs issues and particularly questions concerning sovereignty

that may affect the Taiwan problem tend to require decision

taking at the highest level the relatively low status of the Hong

and Macau Office and of its leaders has tended to have

unfortunate effect upon the negotiations. Those responsible for

day to day negotiations have no incentive to make new suggestions

or to take decisions, for they will be assuredly blamed for any

mistakes and their superiors will take the credit for any

achievements. On the contrary they have every incentive to find

fault with the British side and, as we have seen, they have been

encouraged by Deng himself to keep an eye out for any crafty move

by the British to grab capital from Hong Kong. The effect on the

British side of having had the negotiations conducted on the

whole by a small Foreign Office team has been to have great

professionalism at the cost of suspicion of outsiders. Members

of the team have tended to resent what they regard as ill-founded

criticism from within Britain and Hong Kong and have sometimes

seemed to feel beleaguered and non-communicative. This too has

its problems in a democracy especially when an important

component of the British negotiating position (that is not well

understood in China) is the moral commitment to the well-being

of the Hong Kong people and the attachment to democratic values

and the rule of law.

In China there is a paradox between the growing importance

of Hong Kong in economic matters and the limited bureaucratic

weight given to the actual conduct of the negotiations and the