Chinese premier will lunch with the Queen

Press, 1 June 1985, Page 18

Chinese premier will lunch with the Queen

By

ROGER CRABB,

of Reuter, in Peking

The Chinese premier, Zhao Ziyang, will start a week-long visit to Britain tomorrow and with the Hong Kong issue settled, the way seems clear for a long-delayed flowering of relations and trade. The last obstacle to a successful visit disappeared this week with the completion of the ratification of the Sino-British pact under which the British colony reverts to Chinese rule in 1997. At a ceremony last Monday to exchange the instruments of ratification, a vice-Foreign Minister, Zhou Nan, sounded a highly optimistic note. China, he said, was “fully confident that in the days to come, our two sides will redouble our efforts and push the friendly relations and co-operation already existing between our two countries in various fields to a new high.” Premier Zhao, the highest-rank-ing Chinese visitor to Britain since then Communist Party Chief and Premier, Hua Guofeng, in 1979, is set to receive full honours including a private lunch with Queen Elizabeth at Buckingham Palace. The Queen has already accepted an invitation to come to China, perhaps as early as next year. The upturn in Sino-British relations dates from last July when, after long, tortuous negotiations, the British Foreign Secretary, Sir f Geoffrey Howe, hammered out

with Premier Zhao the final formula for the Hong Kong settlement. The accord, which enshrines a Chinese pledge to allow the capitalist territory to keep its present lifestyle for a further 50 years after 1997, was hailed here as a triumph for realism on both sides. The Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping, delighted with the breakthrough, praised the British Prime Minister Margaret, Thatcher, who, he said, “brought an end to British colonialism.” When Mrs Thatcher came to Peking just before Christmas to sign the pact, Preimer Zhao told her that he hoped to see a steady growth in bilateral trade, and economic and technical co-opera-tion, long stagnant while the Hong Kong problem remained unresolved. Trade exchanges last year, though a record, totalled a mere £596 million (?NZ1656 million), much lower than China’s trade with other major European countries. Apart from the glitter of his London reception — as well as meeting the Queen, Premier Zhao will also be received by the Speaker of the House of Commons and attend a gala ballet performance — there will be a number of occasions for the premier to see has to offer China

commercially. “We are putting a lot of emphasis on this visit on the economictrade side and particular sectors where we think Britain performs well,” British sources in London said. This year Britain has already announced the sale to China of ten BAE-146 short haul passenger aircraft and hopes to clinch other major contracts, including supply of two large turbines for a nuclear power station that will serve both southern China and Hong Kong. The British Government is also anxious to increase sales of its oil exploration equipment, coal-min-ing and handling equipment and high technology products. Premier Zhao will hold talks in London with a group of leading industrialists and financiers, and then spend a morning in Scotland, the centre of Britain’s off shore oil industry, visiting selected Scottish companies. Before leaving Scotland, he will be the guest at a lunch given by the British employers’ organization, the Confederation of British Industry. Premier Zhao and Mrs Thatcher are expected to hold two rounds of formal talks in London and, apart from trade matters, the two leaders were due to discuss EastWest relations, arms control, and other international issues.