PERSONAL AND CONFIDENTIAL
course of any negotiations.
It has become traditional for the local press to turn to us for guidance on relations between the United Kingdom and Hong Kong and too often in the past we have been left to make up our own story as best we could.
You mention Plessey's attempt to provide radar equipment for Kai Tak airport. You will by now have seen the copy of my letter to McFarlane of the Board of Trade in which I described the position at this end. If from your knowledge of this question you feel that there is anything further we can do here, please let me know.
In
As for the extent to which Hong Kong should be allowed to conduct its own external commercial relations, I must confess to some sympathy with the Hong Kong Government. everything except political development (a result, of course, of external political realities) Hong Kong has all the qualifications to become an independent state. It is galling, therefore, for the local people (whether Chinese or expatriates) to have to depend on decisions of the United Kingdom Government.
Much of this is inevitable, of course, as long as the United Kingdom is responsible for Hong Kong in the outside world but I should have thought that the more independence the United Kingdom could grant Hong Kong, especially in commercial matters, the less frustrated the local people would feel. A case in point is landing rights at Kai Tak. There are probably excellent reasons for not allowing Hong Kong a free hand here (although we do not seem to have been properly briefed on this) but I sometimes wonder, without fully understanding the background of the problem, whether United Kingdom (and B.O.A.C.) interests would really be so badly damaged if this bargaining counter were lost.
However, on one point I think Hong Kong has a very strong case. Whenever questions arise in which Hong Kong interests are affected, I think it is essential that the Government of Hong Kong should be consulted at an early stage and its views taken seriously into account.
I am afraid all this is rather outside my sphere but as you raised the question I merely give you my first reactions as a newcomer to this Colony.
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PERSONAL AND CONFIDENTIAL
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