Chapter 20: Suspended by a Pair of Chopsticks

Chapter 20: Suspended by a Pair of Chopsticks

Sir Edward Youde had succeeded Sir Murray MacLehose as Hong Kong's 26th governor in May 1982. He joined the British delegation, headed by Sir Percy Cradock, at the bilateral talks on the future of the territory, nobly bearing up to the scrutiny of television cameras and the interrogations of the media in his frequent commuting between Hong Kong, Beijing and London.

Peter Tsao sought to attach himself to the delegation to provide public relations support. But he failed to obtain prior approval through the New China News Agency before announcing his intention, and as a result suffered humiliation when his subsequent bid was rejected. Used to organising the local media whenever Hong Kong officials confronted them on their home ground, ISD could only watch helplessly as those same reporters pursued Sir Edward down Beijing streets or collared him at the gates of the British Embassy. They sympathised with Chinese officials who had never before encountered press liberties so brazenly flaunted and aggressively pursued.

In the old days, Governors of Hong Kong had cut patrician figures and spoken from Olympian heights. MacLehose had loosened up the style a bit, but was still cast in the aristocratic mould. It was left to Youde, modest, disarming and engagingly ready to talk - even when waylaid in the road by a battery of microphones - to play the role of the ever amenable, ever accessible governor. It mattered not to him that this meant devising new ways of saying nothing of moment on matters as sensitive as the Sino-British negotiations, so long as one expressed it in a basically helpful and co-operative tone of voice.

Nevertheless, despite the oft-repeated statement that the talks were 'useful and constructive' - the term carefully agreed between both parties as their concerted response in all dealings with the media - the impression grew that they were running into serious difficulties, that both sides were negotiating from irreconcilable standpoints.

The Pearl of the Orient had once been memorably portrayed, in tourist posters, as delicately suspended by a pair of chopsticks. The opposing implements were now Chinese and British. In the course of transferring it from one platter to another, the fear was that somebody would fumble that precious orb and let it slip.

Yet of the two sides, it was demonstrably apparent that the Chinese were by far the better prepared. They had in their favour the fruits of various carefully-laid initiatives, going back over many years, for the reclamation of their sovereign rights in regard to Hong Kong. They had laid the foundations for their negotiating position with great care. According to Wang Yincheng: "The Chinese Government sped up preparation for negotiating with the British Government from the beginning of the 1980s. It set up special organisations to make investigation and research, formulating the principle and policy regarding the Hong Kong issue."

But time, he remarks elsewhere in his book, was an unfavourable factor for the British Government.

Given this race against the clock, and the distance that had to be covered in bringing both parties to any kind of reconciliation, the final product of the protracted talks surpassed expectations. British Foreign Secretary Sir Geoffrey Howe, returning from a meeting with Deng Xiaoping, held a press conference in Hong Kong on August 1, 1984 - again organised by ISD - at which he presented the broad outlines of an agreement about to be initialed in Beijing.

Sir Geoffrey said the purpose of his visit to Beijing had been to 'review progress of the negotiations, to make real headway on remaining issues and to strive for the best possible result for the people of Hong Kong'. The two sides, he announced, had agreed to 'the framework and key clauses of a legally-binding accord which would preserve Hong Kong's unique economic system and way of life'. Furthermore, he added, there would be 'satisfactory provisions for liaison and consultation after the conclusion of the agreement'.

Reaction was bullish. The stock market climbed as the Hong Kong public eagerly awaited proof of Sir Geoffrey's assurances in the Sino-British Joint Declaration.

David Wilson - later to become Lord Wilson - joined the British team in the final stages of the negotiations, and well before his eventual replacement of Sir Edward Youde as governor of Hong Kong. He recalls (in Hong Kong Remembers) that the last lap was intense and absolutely exhausting.

"Matters were complicated by the fact that the Chinese text of the agreement was as important as the English, and would be read by more people in Hong Kong. We didn't want a separate negotiation on the Chinese version of the text after an English one, however, so the two were negotiated together. We were aided by the use of modern technology with a computer in the Embassy which could transmit in cipher the Chinese text of what was being agreed. The Chinese side either had to use a typewriter or revert to pens. I believe the use of this sort of information technology for diplomatic negotiations was probably unique at the time."

ISD was made responsible for organising publication of both Chinese and English versions of the draft agreement on September 26, 1984. Presented in the form of a White Paper, this led to queues that wound through the streets of Central and other districts as thousands filed their patient way to the counters of government publications outlets and district offices to receive their free copies. They had heard that the seemingly impossible could be made achievable; that it really was feasible to have one country with two systems. They wanted, in their own hands, tangible evidence to support this miracle, to justify claims of life after 1997.