TNAG-2791-FCO40-4030-Relations-between-Hong-Kong-and-China.-With-maps-1993 — Page 151

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which was approved by the Secretariat of the CPC Central

Committee in December 1982. It followed the lines of what Deng

called "one country two systems" and the Joint Declaration of

1984 is largely based upon it. Liao, unfortunately died in 1983.

He was replaced in effect by Ji Pengfei

by Ji Pengfei (a former Foreign

Minister and a participant in the Long March, but less

cosmopolitan than Liao and less well connected in the overseas

Chinese communities) who although well established in terms of

the Communist Party, did not have as deep an understanding of

Hong Kong affairs as his predecessor and did not enjoy Deng's

confidence to the same extent. He was followed as principal

negotiators on the Chinese side first by Zhang Wenjing then by

Yao Guang who was followed by Zhou Nan and finally by Lu Ping who

currently heads the Hong Kong and Macau Office under the State

Council. The last four have not had the same personal standing

among the top Party leaders as their two predecessors and they

have not had the same access to Deng Xiaoping especially as he

began to withdraw from the daily running of state affairs.

under the

The Hong Kong and Macau Office enjoys ministerial status and

its director is in effect a minister, but the Office is not

directly connected with any of the major bureaucratic systems

centred on the State Council. It is in practice under

authority of the Prime Minister. The Director of the office is

not a member of the important Foreign Affairs Committee of the

Party and State. Apart from the aged 'immortals' such as Deng

Xiaoping, Chen Yun, Peng Zhen etc., that Committee is the ranking

New York: Manchester University Press, 1990).