Beijing secretly invited former Hong Kong No 2 Anson Chan to meet Chinese premier Li Peng in 1993, after collapse of Sino-British talks on electoral reform

While she is now known as a pro-democracy figure and an outspoken critic of Beijing, Hong Kong's former No 2 official Anson Chan Fang On-sang was once the person the Chinese government secretly reached out to after the breakdown of Sino-British talks on electoral reform in the city.

Recently declassified British files show that in 1993, Beijing invited Chan, who was chief secretary at the time, to meet Chinese premier Li Peng, just weeks after negotiations collapsed. Documents from the UK Prime Minister’s Office revealed that the United Kingdom had also sought to establish dialogue between her and the Chinese government, although Beijing did not follow up on its invitation afterwards.

In a note to Roderic Lyne, private secretary to then British prime minister John Major on March 23, 1994, J.S. Smith, private secretary to then foreign secretary Douglas Hurd, wrote that there was a reasonable chance of restoring a “business-like relationship” between China and the UK on matters other than arrangements for Hong Kong’s elections in 1994 and 1995.

“We are planning a series of modest steps to signal to the Chinese our willingness to do business where that would benefit us both,” Smith wrote. “This will include an attempt to resuscitate the idea of a dialogue between the chief secretary in Hong Kong and the Chinese government.”