Downing Street Years - Margaret Thatcher [305]
The terms had three main advantages. First, they constituted what would be an unequivocally binding international agreement. Second, they were sufficiently clear and detailed about what would happen in Hong Kong after 1997 to command the confidence of the people of Hong Kong. Third, there was a provision that the terms of the proposed Anglo-Chinese Agreement would be stipulated in the Basic Law to be passed by Chinese People’s Congress: this would in effect be the constitution of Hong Kong after 1997.
Geoffrey was always good at the actual process of negotiation, though we sometimes fell out as to what was possible as a result of negotiations. In this case, though, he had shown an impressive grasp of the issues throughout; moreover, his meeting with Mr Deng was highly effective in reassuring the Chinese that we were to be trusted and so paving the way for me to return to Peking to sign the Joint Agreement. I congratulated Geoffrey in Cabinet on his return — and I meant every word.
My visit to China in December to sign the Joint Agreement on Hong Kong was a much less tense occasion than my visit two years earlier. The difficult negotiations were already concluded. We had won the support, with some reservations, of the Unofficial Members of EXCO for the agreement. I had explained its contents to President Reagan and won American support as well. The main purpose, therefore, of my talks in Peking must be to strengthen the trust which the Chinese had in our good faith as regards the management of the transition till 1997 and to reinforce in every way possible their sense of obligation to carry through the agreement.
I arrived in Peking on the evening of Tuesday 18 December. The official welcoming ceremony was at 9 o’clock the following morning: at it I reviewed a Guard of Honour in Tiananmen Square, where less than five years later the massacre of protesters took place which would suddenly throw doubt on the carefully negotiated agreement I was here to conclude.
The rest of the morning was spent in some two and a half hours of talks with Prime Minister Zhao Ziyang. The mood was friendly and relaxed: but it was clear to me that the Chinese were as concerned about the transitional period as I was. They wanted to maintain stability and prosperity: but they had their own ideas about how this should be done. I emphasized that it all came down to the drafting of the Basic Law. It must be suited to the capitalist system and consistent with the Hong Kong legal system. I stressed how important it was that China had expressed willingness to solicit opinions from a wide range of people within Hong Kong. I then broached what I knew would be an even more sensitive topic. I said that the Chinese would be aware of our proposals for the constitutional development of Hong Kong — essentially strengthening in a modest way democracy and autonomy, though I was careful not to use these words. Mr Zhao answered that the Chinese Government was not prepared to make any comment on constitutional development in the transitional period. In principle, the Chinese too wanted more Hong Kong people involved in the administration. But that process must not adversely affect stability and prosperity or the smooth transfer of government in 1997. I left it at that; it was as far as I felt it was prudent to go at this meeting.
In the afternoon I talked to the Chinese Communist Party General Secretary, Hu Yaobang, whose influence I had been told was greater than some outside observers thought. I had earlier met the diminutive Mr Hu when he visited London. He was widely considered — perhaps too widely for his own interests as it turned out — to be Deng Xiaoping’s preferred successor and was known as a reformist. I had said quite openly to him in London that many of us hoped that those like him who had lived through the Cultural Revolution would bring a new approach to China’s affairs.