Thatcher points to U.K. links with Far East

Press, 27 September 1982, Page 9

Thatcher points to U.K. links with Far East

NZPA-Reuter Shanghai The British Prime Minister, Mrs Margaret Thatcher, emphasised Shanghai's historic and continuing links with Britain and Hong Kong after arriving yesterday from Peking, where talks were held with Chinese leaders on the colony’s future. Mrs Thatcher, visiting Shanghai’s Jiangnan shipyard, named a ship built there for Hong Kong millionaire, Sir Y. K. Pao. She called the ship a symbol of close relations between China, Britain and Hong

Kong. “What could be more fitting than a Hong Kong ship launched by a British Prime Minister in China’s most famous port?" she said. After the Peking talks, the two Governments said in a joint statement that China and Britain would open talks on ways of maintaining the stability and prosperity of the colony over which Peking claims tyAt a banquet given by the Shanghai Mayor, Wang Daohan. Mrs Thatcher paid tribute to the role of Hong

Kong-based banks and trading companies in stimulating Sino-British. trade. She said that she hoped the reopening soon of a British Consulate in Shanghai would further stimulate exchanges between the two countries. The old consulate was closed 15 years ago after staff ■ were harassed by fanatical Red Guards during the Cultural Revolution. Mrs Thatcher went to China’s most populous city — about 11 million people — after three exhausting days of talks in Peking. She immediately plunged into another busy schedule.

After talks with the Mayor and the launching ceremony for the 27,000-ton' World Goodwill, she visited Shanghai's Institute of Biochemistry and then attended a reception for the local British community. At the banquet, the speeches were less formal and more personal than those in Peking's forbidding Great Hall of the People. Mrs Thatcher later flew to Canton. Western diplomats said it could take months or possibly two to three years before a solution on Hong Kong is reached.