Painting or porcelain? Thatcher eager to please China’s Zhao Ziyang during 1985 visit to Britain
Keen to secure trade concessions and assurances on the Sino-British Joint Declaration, then prime minister spent a week discussing gifts for Chinese premier, declassified records show
Britain was eager to please former Chinese premier Zhao Ziyang during his visit to London after the two countries concluded a treaty in 1984 on Hong Kong’s future, so much so that Margaret Thatcher and her aides spent a week discussing what gift to give him, declassified records show.
The documents, from the latest batch of British cabinet office files released by the country’s National Archives, shed light on the government’s preparations for a lavish event to receive Zhao in June 1985, six months after he signed the Sino-British Joint Declaration with the then British prime minister in Beijing.
The focus of Zhao’s week-long visit was on Hong Kong and trade, but the archives reveal anecdotes about Thatcher’s cabinet and details of a frank exchange between Zhao’s deputy, vice-premier Tian Jiyun, and a British minister.
“They [the delegation] were delighted by their reception with the prime minister and the general spirit of friendship and by the fuss made of them by all concerned,” concluded Lord David Young, minister without portfolio who later became secretary of state for trade and industry, in his report to Thatcher summarising his conversations with Zhao and Tian on their trip to Cambridge.
