TNAG-2702-FCO40-3908-Memoirs-of-Sir-Percy-Cradock--diplomat-and-sinologist-1993 — Page 27

for Hong Kong. We were therefore negotiating throughout

for the best we could get, pressing very hard, but avoiding

a breakdown, for which Hong Kong would have to pay. The

same reasoning informed our dealings with Peking after

1984, particularly in the exchanges over directly elected

seats in the Hong Kong legislature.

On the Chinese side, the arguments for negotiation

were less compelling: they were in a position to dictate.

But they sought the benefits which a peaceful and agreed

transfer of power offered in terms of economic gain,

China's international standing and, above all, the

prospects of reunification with Taiwan. Overt use of force

or blackmail over Hong Kong would destroy the hopes,

which, happily, they still entertained, of recovering the

most important piece of lost national territory. For these

reasons they were ready to treat, to offer reasonable

terms and to honour their new obligations as they

interpreted them.

But in Britain the 1984 agreement, however successful

and skilfully accomplished, left among many an uneasy

feeling, an ill-defined sense of guilt. I recall being

asked by Peter Hennessy, in an interview in 1984, whether

there was not a parallel with Yalta and the transfer then

of large numbers of Russians to Stalin's mercies. I

thought it a bad analogy and said so: there might have been

some relevance if we had done nothing; as it was, we had

provided the most elaborate protection possible. But the

fact that such a question could be posed, and by a well-

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