中国人 "无中生有 "地提到了欧洲革命，证明了某种程度上的不自信

 在六四之前，这听起来是一帆风顺的，让英国政府庆幸地放弃了自己的责任，带着一些破损的荣誉悄悄离开。

六四之后，这就不再可行了。

1989年12月，珀西-柯利達爵士爵士又一次秘密飞往北京。

陪同他的是外交部的汉学家罗宾-麦克拉伦，他认为罗宾是 "一位老朋友和伟大的专家，我可以完全信赖他的判断"。

这两人向新的中国领导人提交了撒切尔夫人的信息。

英国人希望在1991年的立法会选举中把直选席位增加一倍，从10个增加到20个，并在以后的选举中增加其数量。

他们寻求达成协议，在1995年的投票中当选的立法者将能够担任整个四年的任期。

这被称为 "直通车"，与1979年启用的香港和广州之间的不间断铁路相比较。

 

Before June Fourth this sounded like plain sailing, allowing the British government thankfully to relinquish its responsibility and creep away with some tattered honour. After June Fourth it was no longer tenable. In December 1989 Sir Percy Cradock once again flew to Beijing in secret. He was accompanied by the Foreign Office Sinologist Robin McLaren, whom he viewed as ‘an old friend and great expert, on whose judgement I could place complete reliance’. The duo presented the new Chinese leaders with a message from Mrs Thatcher. The British wanted to double the number of directly elected seats in the Legislative Council elections of 1991 from ten to twenty and to increase their number in later elections. They sought an agreement that legislators elected in the polls of 1995 would be able to serve a full four-year term. This was known as the ‘through train’, a comparison with the non-stop rail link between Hong Kong and Guangzhou inaugurated in 1979.

 

在他的回忆录中，柯利達爵士把与 "强硬和不屈 "的中国领导人进行的这些民主谈判说成是一场与困难作斗争的战斗。

他直接承认，英国不会允许香港被用作 "颠覆中国政府权威的基地"，尽管他无权扩大殖民地的独立法院和法官可能用来镇压这种不明确活动的法律。

他同意英国不会通过让美国或其他大国参与进来而使香港问题 "国际化"，这一点的可信度更高。

在作出这些让步后，柯利達爵士发现中国方面对他的其他论点无动于衷，一个不那么狡猾的人可能会把这些论点当作是如何不进行谈判的教训。

 

In his memoir, Cradock presented these negotiations on democracy with the ‘tough and unyielding’ Chinese leaders as a doughty battle against the odds. He conceded straight away that the British would not allow Hong Kong to be used ‘as a base to subvert the authority of the Chinese government’, although he had no authority to extend the laws which the independent courts and judges of the colony might use to suppress such unspecified activities. With somewhat more credibility he agreed that Britain would not ‘internationalise’ the question of Hong Kong by involving the United States or other powers. These concessions dispensed, Cradock found the Chinese side unmoved by his other arguments, which a less subtle intellect might have taken as a lesson in how not to conduct negotiations.

 

柯利達爵士认为，在讨价还价的背后，"中国方面对西式民主作为一种政治变革甚至混乱的力量有着深刻的怀疑。

对中国的新领导人江泽民和他的同事来说，'这与过去几个月他们的统治受到的威胁和来自香港的干扰有关'。

中国的权力大厦是脆弱的；直到1992年10月的党的十四大，江泽民和他的新政治局才对他们的权威感到自信，并得到了邓小平本人的公开批准。

中国人 "无中生有 "地提到了欧洲革命，并急于向中国说明，那些崩溃的政权是由红军建立的；而中国的共产主义是土生土长的，根基牢固。

柯利達爵士承认这一点是有道理的，尽管不断提及这一点 "证明了某种程度上的不自信"。

 

Cradock believed that behind the haggling ‘lay a profound suspicion on the Chinese side of Western-style democracy as a force for political change, even chaos’. To China’s new leader Jiang Zemin and his colleagues, ‘it was associated with the threat to their rule in the past months and with interference from Hong Kong.’ The edifice of Chinese power was fragile; it was not until the Fourteenth Party Congress of October 1992 that Jiang and his new Politburo would feel confident of their authority with the seal of public approval from Deng himself. The Chinese would refer ‘apropos of nothing’ to the European revolutions and hasten to make China’s case that the collapsed regimes had been set up by the Red Army; whereas Chinese Communism was home-grown and firmly rooted. Cradock admitted that there was something to this, although the constant need to mention it ‘argued a certain lack of confidence’.