RECE
со
M
sme 20/12
In
Saforett In
Do
13
2 DEC 1993
My Colwelt hello
من
Miss Shyamaliz 12/12
OTRY
CISTRY on Take
you
have any where
'safe' to keep this? It might belong better with
you than on
file IS ich
From: R F Wye
22/12
Far East Section
of Ideations'
12
Research & Analysis Dept
OAB 2/125 210 6219/6216
Intriguing. Ser P. Blaker Date: 16 December 1993
wrote to the Times earlier His
Mr Ricketts HKD year corroborating the Fenton
her
thesis. The fear of our White Paper даре lee Greatly drakted to avoid making
a His illue which ove
ZHOU ENLAI ON HONG KONG
1.
aum
clavian Could not substantiate.
pa.
Acbeth Zoliz
013/1
You may recall my earlier minutes on this subject (minutes of 5 and 13 April) which arose from an article by James Fenton claiming that the Chinese Prime Minister Zhou Enlai (Chou En-lai) had told the then Governor of Hong Kong, Sir Alexander Grantham, in 1955 that Britain could continue to administer Hong Kong so long as it did not introduce democratic reforms. For the sake of completeness, I have since found what may have been the source of Mr Fenton's remarks. In his book "Hong Kong, Hong Kong" Dick Wilson says of the incident:
"After conversations with Zhou Enlai and other senior officials, Grantham was able to return with the unofficial message that China accepted the British presence and would not undermine it, that Hong Kong was a problem left over from history which could be resolved at leisure, and that China accepted the status quo- as long as Britain kept order, and did not allow Hong Kong to become either self governing (because that would rule out rejoining China) or a Guomindang base. To these `conditions' was later added an injunction against allowing the Russians to build up a presence there."
He does not give a source for his statements, but there must clearly have been a published account (and not Sir A Grantham's memoirs, which were very coy on the subject of the meeting) from which he got this version.
2. I have at last been able to track down the official record, such as it is, of that meeting. It is contained in a series of telegrams (copies attached) from the Charge d'Affaires in Peking to London. As the introductory telegram makes clear, the British side were not allowed to take notes during the meeting, and most of Zhou's discourse was unconnected with Hong Kong. The main subjects on which our Charge reported were: Americans in China (release of); China and the United Nations; Formosa (Taiwan); Macao; and the Hong Kong aircraft crash (the sabotage while on the ground in Hong Kong of an aircraft which was to have taken
LAST PAPER
No comments yet.
Private notes are available after approval.