Colony talks to resume

Press, 1 August 1989, Page 9

Colony talks to resume

NZPA-Reuter Paris Britain and China agreed on Sunday to resume talks on the scheduled hand-over of Hong Kong to China in 1997, a British Foreign Ministry source said. The newly-appointed British Foreign Secretary, John Major, and his Chinese counterpart, Qian Qichen, met for nearly an hour at a hotel in Paris, where both are attending a 19-nation peace conference on Cambodia. British sources said the meeting was the first high-level official contact between the Governments since China ordered troops and tanks to crush pro-democracy demonstrations in June. The crackdown in China, condemned worldwide, - alarmed Hong Kong’s 7 million people, most of whom are due to become Chinese after 1997 under a 1984 agreement.

The sources said Mr Major drew attention to the strength of feeling in Hong Kong and Britain over events in China.

Mr Major and Mr Qian agreed that a joint liaison group working out details of the handover of Hong Kong would meet in the last week of September in London and again in December. China has pledged it will not interfere with Hong Kong’s free-wheel-ing capitalism but residents have angrily accused Britain of not doing enough to reassure them.