2
2
I consider that the background to these
exchanges of view is adequately summarised in the attached brief (Enclosure I) prepared by the Hong Kong Department of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office for the senior officials of the office engaged in discussions with Sir David French in November and December 1969, and which the Foreign and Commonwealth Office has agreed it would be useful for you
to see.
It was prepared from various papers, which included contributions from Phillip Haddon-Cave and myself.
5.
*
In amplification of the brief, with reference to the comment in paragraph 7, I think I should make plain that, for son years before 1968, H.M.G. had shown no wish to intervene in detail in Hong Kong's trade negotiations with third parties, and that various precedents existed for the Hong Kong Government acting in accordance with its own view of the colony's interests and with minimal advice from British officials. I also think officials in Hong Kong would emphasise the first two sentences in both paragraphs 16 and 17; and there is also the point that decisions on Hong Kong's commercial policy have to be defended by Hong Kong officials before public opinion in the Colony. Clearly, British officials are unlikely to have as sound an appreciation as the Hong Kong Government of the political effects in Hong Kong of a particular course of action. However, the brief shows that the Foreign and Commonwealth Office has taken a sympathetic view of the Hong Kong Government's difficulties throughout the discussions which, as you will have noted, were largely centred on the irreconcilable views of Hong Kong and British essential interests held by Hong Kong Government officials on the one hand and officials of the Board of Trade/ Ministry of Technology on the other.
6.
The result of the discussions in November and December 1969 was the draft despatch at Enclosure II, which
This was based on an original draft by Sir David Trench.
draft was acceptable to the Hong Kong Government, but not in the end to all the whitehall departments concerned, and there- fore the intention of submitting it to Ministers was not carried out.
cont/....