TNAG-2702-FCO40-3908-Memoirs-of-Sir-Percy-Cradock--diplomat-and-sinologist-1993 — Page 184

24 A Break in Cooperation

The last section of this book has dealt with Hong Kong

from the time when it took over as the dominant theme in

Sino-British relations to the point of my retirement in

1992. That period has a unifying theme in the efforts of the

two governments to come to a negotiated settlement on Hong

Kong's future and to cooperate in order to ensure a smooth

transition in 1997. But it was a course which was never

entirely free from controversy; it came under particular

strain in the years after Tiananmen; and from October 1992

it was for a time abandoned. We moved into rougher

waters.

It is worth pausing at this point to look at the

rigins and force of the criticisms levelled against the

policy of cooperation and to ask whether any other route.

could have been followed.

On the British side, cooperation was virtually

imposed by the hard facts of history and geography and by

the disparities of power, on this matter at least, between

Britain and China. The lease, which we recognised, meant

reversion, with or without safeguards. A military response

was considered and dismissed at the outset. At any number of

points in the course of our exchanges in 1983 and 1984

defiance and withdrawal from the talks would have been

possible; it was always the easy option; but it was rightly

rejected as destructive and indefensible, given our

responsibility

for

Hong Kong. We were

therefore