difficult and unrewarding; I
think their failure to offer virtually any concession is a bad tactical mistake on their part. It is not in their tradition and it is not in their interests to try to humiliate their opponents, but they seem to have tried to do so in this case.
We, as you say, did offer some concessions, but our sights were set very high and they were kept unrealistically high. As a result we faced a choice round about November which was bound to be difficult. It was a choice between drastically lowering our sights, our objectives, or facing renewed and probably lasting confrontation. I would suggest that faced with that choice, which was of course very difficult, we have made the wrong decision. And why is it the wrong decision? It is because
it is the larger evil for Hong Kong.
Sir John Stanley: Sir Percy, I would totally agree with you, and I imagine the Committee would, in using as your prime benchmark for the route to follow which will produce the best results for the people of Hong Kong. You have argued very forcibly that the route that the Governor and the Government are going down now will result in the people of Hong Kong being worse off. I would wish to put an alternative argument to you, and ask for your response to it, which is that the route which you are advocating is actually the route that will result in the worst result for the people of Hong Kong, and for this reason. You are advocating that the British Government effectively accepts the terms that the Chinese wish to impose; effectively you are saying that the British Government must acquiesce in a total emasculation of any real democracy in Hong Kong, and that will be imposed effectively from 1997 and there will be no change in that between now and 1997.
The argument goes that if we take that course, the Chinese Government will for ever more be able to say that what they have done in relation to Hong Kong was done with the agreement of the British Government. The British Government was not prepared to stand up for democracy, and therefore the international community cannot be expected to stand up for democracy either.
The alternative, which is the route the British Government
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