Thatcher wanted cheaper menu for Beijing banquet

During their historic 1982 talks in Beijing, thrifty Margaret Thatcher fretted about banquet expenses, while Deng Xiaoping worried over moves that might undermine Hong Kong's prosperity in the run-up to the 1997 handover.

Personal papers released yesterday show the extensive preparations for Thatcher's important trip to China in September 1982. It was the first visit by a British leader to the country, and was to include sensitive talks on the future of the British colony of Hong Kong.

Thatcher tried to offer the cheapest menu option for a banquet for dignitaries in China - but backed down when her ambassador said her guests would feel slighted by the absence of sea cucumbers and shark's fin soup.

Deng's worries, he told the then British prime minister, were that disturbances would be created not by governments but by individuals, "some Chinese, some British", during the transitional period.

"Deng said, 'Take for instance the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank. No one knew how many banknotes it had issued," the record of conversation between the two leaders said. The then paramount leader did not elaborate on what worry he had about HSBC, the de facto central bank in Hong Kong at the time.

As for the menu, it " went through many, many, many phases of discussion", said Chris Collins, a historian at the Margaret Thatcher Foundation.