Colony talks to restart

Press, 19 March 1984, Page 10

Colony talks to restart

NZPA Hong Kong The pace of the SinoBritish talks on Hong Kong’s future has been stepped up. It was announced in Peking on Saturday that more talks would be held before the end of the month.

There has been increasing speculation in the colony that an agreement on Hong Kong’s future after 1997, when Britain’s lease on most of the territory is due to expire, will be reached by June, and perhaps earlier.

The latest round of talks ended in Peking with the now-standard communique

asserting that discussions had been “useful and constructive.” Chinese and British officials said that the next round would be held on March 26 and 27, breaking the pattern of three or fourweek recesses that has been established over the 10 sessions to date. The call by some members of the Legislative Council, the territory’s lawmaking body, for public disclosure of details of the talks, during a controversial debate last week on the negotiations, was said to have been used as a bargaining point by the British in Peking at the week-end.

Unofficial (non-Govern-ment) members of the appointed council were believed to be supported by some senior official (Government) members in questioning the “no news is good news” policy on the secret talks — a policy which has prevailed since negotiations began more than a year ago. Some kind of public announcement on the detailed progress of the talks, which have caused wide-spread unease in the prosperous, capitalist territory, the world’s third-biggest financial centre, is viewed by observers in Hong Kong as being a matter of urgency.