Downing Street Years - Margaret Thatcher [304]
At this time I received further advice from someone whose experience in dealing with the Chinese I knew to be unequalled. At the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in New Delhi I discussed our problems in dealing with the Chinese with Lee Kuan Yew, the Prime Minister of Singapore. Unfortunately, the discussion was interrupted on several occasions and Mr Lee telephoned through to me his full advice later. This was that we should send a very senior minister or emissary to convey our proposals at the highest possible level of the Chinese Government. It was crucial, he said, that we should adopt the right attitude — neither defiant nor submissive, but calm and friendly. We should say clearly that the fact was that if China did not wish Hong Kong to survive, nothing would allow it to do so. This, of course, was precisely the point that Deng Xiaoping had put to me in September 1982. I had managed then to persuade him that there was an international price to be paid if he simply took over without any regard for the prosperity and system of Hong Kong. But I now had to accept that China’s concern for its international good name would allow us only so much latitude. Mr Lee’s advice therefore confirmed me in the course upon which I had decided the previous month. The question remained: what would be the basis of the Chinese administration? From now on we must concentrate on the questions of autonomy and preservation of the existing legal, economic and social system after 1997.
Whatever concessions we had to make, I was determined that the representatives of the people of Hong Kong — the ‘unofficial’ members of the Hong Kong Executive Council (EXCO) — should be consulted at each crucial stage. Geoffrey Howe and I met them on the morning of Monday 16 January 1984 at Downing Street. As always, I was struck by their common sense and realism about the highly unpalatable options they knew we had to consider. They basically shared our objective, which was the highest degree of autonomy for Hong Kong we could get backed by the best possible Chinese assurances. After this meeting I began to think hard about how best we could give undertakings of a right of entry to the United Kingdom to those in Hong Kong who would be putting themselves and their families at risk through sensitive work for the Hong Kong Government in the period up to 1997. When I discussed the matter with ministers and officials in July I said that we should err on the side of generosity. It must never be said that the United Kingdom repaid loyalty with disloyalty.
The single most difficult issue which we now faced in negotiations with the Chinese was the location of the ‘Joint Liaison Group’ which would be established after the planned Anglo-Chinese Agreement had been signed to make provision for the transition. I was worried that during the transition this body would become an alternative power centre to the Governor or, worse, that it would create the impression of some kind of Anglo-Chinese ‘Condominium’ which would have destroyed confidence. But I also insisted that it should continue for three years after 1997 so as to maintain confidence after the handover of administration had taken place. I wrote to Mr Zhao to this effect.
Geoffrey Howe had visited Peking in April and now returned in July, accompanied by Sir Percy Cradock, and successfully reached a compromise on the Joint Liaison Group, which would not operate in Hong Kong before 1988. Geoffrey’s patient