The negotiations following Margaret Thatcher’s visit had commenced on 12 July in the former Austro–Hungarian Legation Building in Beijing. As we saw, Cradock may have taken the view that China's leaders were incorrigible, ineducable, and blinkered by dogma and nationalistic pride, but to the Chinese side, Britain’s negotiators demonstrated a ‘colonialist and imperialist attitude’, one which was ‘outmoded, lacking in reality and would get nowhere’. Mid–way through the formal negotiations in July and August of 1983, between the second round in late July and the third round in early August, the Chinese delegation was to present publicly its position on the indivisibility of sovereignty and administration, i.e. that there is no resumption of sovereignty over Hong Kong if Britain were to continue to administer it. China also unveiled the 12 principles (or ‘Twelve Point Plan’) for Hong Kong.