Hong Kong's eligibility might lead to a hardening of
views against Hong Kong. Nevertheless Mr. Jordan was
clearly not in favour of an early abandonment of the position that the principle of self-election should apply unconditionally to Hong Kong. When the stage
is reached indicating the need to take a decision to compromise, the Hong Kong Government would wish to be
consulted. We said that we of course understood and
accepted this: our concern was that this point of time might not emerge all that clearly and there was perhaps a danger that our representatives might be drawn almost imperceptibly into a situation of
discussing compromise solutions.
(iii) The measure of UK support for Hong Kong.
Mr. Jordan appeared to accept that in the final analysis the means open to the UK of exerting pressure on Hong Kong's behalf were limited. The exclusion of
textiles would greatly soften the impact of any
discriminatory treatment of Hong Kong and there might
be other products. Mr. Jordan discounted the
usefulness of diplomatic representations in foreign capitals; Mr. Britten suggested, on the other hand,
that we should not rule out such representations
completely even though that outcome might be dubious.
Hong Kong Department
23 October, 1969
Copy to: Mr. Britten, Trade Policy Dept.