A
the Embassy have had with your officials, the latter
had expressed the view that legally dependent
territories are the responsibility of the metropolitan
power and hence should be excluded from the scheme.
I must contest the view that dependent status
justifies any discrimination against such territories
in the context of measures designed to help the
ceonomic development of developing countries generally.
The British Government would find such discrimination
particularly difficult to accept in the case of
Hong Kong with its unique dependence on the production
and export of manufactures. Japn's decision in
this matter is likely to have great weight since the
exclusion of Hong Kong by Japan might well lead other
countries which take a much larger percentage of
Hong Kong exports to follow suit on burden sharing
grounds. The consequences would be widespread
discrimination in favour of Hong Kong's competitors
amongst developing countries, with the serious risk
of throats to Hong Kong's social and political
stability in which our two countries have a joint
interest.
3. I very much hope your Government will give
Further earnest consideration to the arguments which
we have put forward and will agree to include
Hong Kong and other dependent territories in the
Japanese scheme.
Ends.
C
(11516) Dd.392077 300m 10/68 G.W.B.Ltd. Gp.863
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