CONFIDENTIAL
United States
5.
Cronk told me that no firm decision had been taken on beneficiaries and, in view of the way discussion was going in the Special Committee, they were letting it ride. He thought that we would have to get down to this question at the OECD Trade Committee on 30 November/1 December and said that the U.S. position on Hong Kong still depended to a large extent on the attitude of other donors. I told him we were working on the Community and he said we would need to work "real good" in that direction. I later gave Cronk a copy of Hermann's letter of 29 September to Ernest Johnson of the National Security Council (I also gave a copy to Kemmis).
6.
I also took the opportunity at a dinner party to give Bushnell (the UNCTAD expert in the U.S. Geneva Mission) a real geing over on the economic and political consequences of the U.S. excluding Hong Kong. I told him that the degree of discrimination involved would stond the time honoured American doctrine of non-discrimination right on its head.
EEC
7. As explained in UKMIS, Geneva, telegram No.705 of 6 October, Tran sought me out to give me the information set out in that telegram. He would speak only with me and appeared more agitated even than usual; indeed we had to retreat upstairs before he would talk. Di Martino, on the other hand, would say nothing. He appears now to have closed his mind ♦n the Hong Kong question and dismisses it as "too difficult" te de anything about.
!
8. Kemmis conversation with Mlle. Guy♦t recorded in the same telegram I would slightly qualify. Miss Guyot is personally more sympathetic to both the U.K. and Hong Kong than the average run of French official. She also regards the enlargement of the EEC as an imperative necessity and in the interests of France. Whether what she would be prepared to concede to Hong Kong would be echoed by those actually doing the negotiating is another matter.
Japan
9.
Nothing more of any significance emerged from my contacts with the Japanese and I thought it could be counter-productive at this stage to press them further. The battle must now be fought at a much higher level.
Nordics
10. In conversation with Kemmis the Swedes let drop that they were worried about Hong Kong. How could they give preferences to a country against whom they had QRS? This led me to tackle Rydfors, the leader of their delegation (who has just replaced de Geer). I said that a limited range of voluntary restraints on textiles was not QRS. Furthermore, Sweden had restraint agreements with Yugoslavia, Taiwan and Kɔrea as well as Hong Kong. Finally, the Nordic countries would probably in the end exclude most textiles from their scheme. If they wished to, they could exclude Hong Kong on textiles or at least on the products subject to restraint. Rydfors took note of this and said that no decision had been taken on beneficiaries. We agreed tɔ keep in touch at the OECD.
CONFIDENTIAL
Commonwealth Consultations