China-U.K. talks resume

Press, 20 October 1983, Page 6

China-U.K. talks resume

NZPA-Reuter Peking Britain and China returned to the negotiating table yesterday to discuss the future of Hong Kong after a one-month break and reports that London would present new ideas to Peking in an attempt to break the deadlock.

Diplomatic sources said that a joint statement would be issued on the two-day talks, but added it would give little indication of the content of the negotiations. British officials, meanwhile, declined to comment on press reports that a personal letter from the British Prime Minister, Mrs Margaret Thatcher, outlining “new ideas” on the colony’s future would be handed over to the Chinese.

But the reports have not been denied outright and Hong Kong newspapers have speculated that some progress was expected at the present session.

The “South China Morning Post” also quoted unnamed sources in London as saying that Mrs Thatcher was looking to Hong Kong to give her and the ruling Conservative Party a boost in morale after the Trade and Industry Secretary, Mr Cecil Parkinson, resigned because of an affair with his secretary. China has said it plans to regain sovereignty over Hong Kong in 1997 when a lease under which Britain governs most of the territory expires.

Its uncompromising statements about the future, apparently in response to what is believed to be London’s refusal so far to concede sovereignty over Hong Kong Island and. the Kowloon peninsula unless Peking agrees to some British presence in the territory after 1997, have severely rattled the world’s largest financial centre after New York and London.