CONFIDENTIAL
4. The Way Forward
The Governor gave his assessment of the arguments on the way forward. The Hong Kong community wanted three things:
for Britain to stand up to China;
a bit more say in their own affairs; and
a quiet life.
The relative priority they gave these desires depended on where the flak was coming from at any given moment. The
Governor's policies still had good support, though less than before. Everyone wanted to see talks with China.
(We had
lost the battle of ascribing blame for the breakdown of talks
about talks.)
5.
The Hong Kong community now wanted talks but would criticise us if we conceded in them to China's demands.
Difficult to see how we could reach agreement unless we agreed
to China's definition of an acceptable LegCo. This might be easier to sell if China agreed to a through train (with Martin Lee on board) but this was unlikely. Either way it was
awkward. If talks did not succeed we would be in the same
position as now but 6 or 12 months down the road. It would be difficult to handle a disengagement particularly if we were disengaging after China had won the right to stage the 2000 Olympics and had got through another year of MFN. Talks would allow us to get through the summer without tension in Hong Kong but he had a horror of finding ourselves in the last two years explaining away why we were not objecting to Martin Lee being thrown off the through train. If we broke off now before talks the disadvantages would include more Chinese blasts; Sino/UK relations worst ever (since the last worst
note.govmeeting.MORRIS
JEB
CONFIDENTIAL
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