Hard-fought Sino-British negotiations over Hong Kong revealed in declassified files
Declassified files show how strongly Thatcher team believed British rule could continue, and its fears Chinese takeaway could pre-empt handover
Signing the historic Joint Declaration that paved the way for Hong Kong's return to China, British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher described the negotiations as having been "not always easy" and with "moments of tension".
Declassified British government files show Thatcher understated the problems. They reveal fraught negotiations with China before the 1984 agreement and fears that the talks would collapse amid undiplomatic language from both sides.
Britain's ambassador to Beijing, Percy Cradock, slated China's leaders as an "incorrigible and ineducable" group who were "blinkered by dogma and national pride". China's negotiators retorted that their British counterparts had a "colonialist and imperialist attitude" which was "outmoded, lacking in reality and would get nowhere".
The files show how strongly Thatcher believed during the early stages of the negotiations that continued British administration of Hong Kong after 1997 was feasible.
Negotiations on Hong Kong's future began in September 1982 when Thatcher met Chinese leaders in Beijing. She told Premier Zhao Ziyang that China's proposals for Hong Kong to become a largely self-governing special administrative zone of China - essentially the 'one country, two systems' framework in effect today - would be "disastrous" for investor confidence and lead to its collapse as a financial centre.
She continued that "there would certainly be a wholesale flight of capital from Hong Kong" and that "this money, having left Hong Kong, would not return". Thatcher concluded: "We believe that that plan would lead to the collapse of Hong Kong as a financial centre."