The Cradock Brief
HE USED to be called 'the man who really runs Hong Kong'. For more than a decade, Sir Percy Cradock played a crucial role in determining the territory's fate, first as British Ambassador to Beijing from 1978 to 1984 and then as the Prime Minister's Foreign Policy Adviser until 1992.
It was he who negotiated everything from the 1984 Sino-British Joint Declaration to the 1991 Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) over the new airport, repeatedly undertaking secret missions to Beijing to strike deals on Hong Kong's behalf.
Even today, although Sir Percy has come out into the public eye with his criticism of Governor Chris Patten's political reform proposals, he has - until now - remained silent over his role in these earlier accords.
That is why these memoirs, to be published in Hong Kong later this month, are so important: the first by any of the Foreign Office mandarins who have been so influential in shaping the territory's future, and a strong defence of the approach they pursued, which has now come under such sustained attack.
Experiences of China is packed with previously unknown information. The extract printed on the following pages reveals it was former prime minister Lady Thatcher who first decided that Hong Kong needed a political governor - a decision which ultimately ledto Lord Wilson's replacement by Chris Patten.
It also emerges that Sir Percy never expected to conclude an airport accord when he set out for Beijing in June 1991 on the secret mission that led to the signing of the MoU.
Elsewhere in the memoirs are revelations about when China first told Britain it wanted Hong Kong back in 1997, coupled with new details about the Joint Declaration.
Such events are still the subject of controversy, with Beijing last month claiming Sir Percy made a secret agreement on the airport-related debt during his 1991 visit - a charge which was promptly denied.
The memoirs have also been the subject of controversy. The Cabinet Office in London - after sending a copy of the manuscript to Government House - objected to several passages critical of Mr Patten's policies and insisted that they be removed.
But what is remarkable is how much of the memoirs survived their scrutiny. Barely a dozen paragraphs in the 276-page book were changed as a result of the British Government's objections and the final version still contains much strident criticism of the Governor's policies, as well as a warning that co-operation with China is the only way to safeguard Hong Kong's future.
Nor is it likely to be the last we will hear from Sir Percy: he is already considering writing another book.
