TNAG-2702-FCO40-3908-Memoirs-of-Sir-Percy-Cradock--diplomat-and-sinologist-1993 — Page 230

confidential negotiations in the old style between London and Peking. We are all negotiators now, though some of us have come to it

later than others. Nor is it reasonable to argue that, negotiators, I represent appeasement and surrender: as in 1982-4,

and as I have said publicly, I advocate negotiating for as much as we

can get, provided always we recognise that an agreed settlement is

much preferable to breakdown. This is one of the themes of the book;

how then can it undermine?

In other words, I cannot agree that the book will weaken the

present British position. I do accept that it may cause offence on the

British side by rehearsing the causes of the present crisis, as I see

them. You might well prefer that there was no book in prospect. But

that is a different issue.

One final point on this aspect. You cannot reasonably expect me

in a book of this kind to omit a defence of the policy of cooperation

with China for the benefit of Hong Kong, with which I am closely

associated, which has come under repeated public attack, and which I

have so far not formally expounded and justified. Nor could I be

expected to omit an explanation of how I came to speak out in December

1992. This is public debate not a question of disclosure from the

archives. Yet this is what your request for excision of

of the

penultimate chapter amounts to.

As regards the airport, it is an essential ingredient of the

present crisis; my part in the 1991 agreement is well-known; I could

hardly omit some account of what went on. The exchanges are almost all

public knowledge. As an example, I enclose a copy of an article in the

South China Morning Post of July 1991.

Against this background the chapter in the book is hardly

revelatory. Nor could publication of an account of such exchanges by

a well known dissident be attributed to the Government; it might be

different if you were publishing or leaking yourselves. I cannot

believe therefore that the book would cause the Chinese to withdraw

from talks on the airport which they have resumed on good tactical

grounds of their own. But, if this chapter gives you trouble, I could

consider some minor reworking:

I

could perhaps discuss this with someone from the Foreign Office.

The choice you present me with in your final paragraph is a hard

SIS COPY THE ORIGINAL HAS BEEN

CLOSED UNDER

FOI EXEMPTION NO....2.7.(.)