Reference...
CONFIDENTIAL
22
HONG KONG AND ECAFE
The British delegation had a good deal to do with the Hong Kong delegation in Tokyo, and the report from Mr Stratton tallies with my recollections (which I have checked with Mr Smith, the head of our delegation). The Chinese did appear to be carefully avoiding taking open issue on the status of Hong Kong, and Hong Kong received none of the ritual blasts let off against Indo-China and South Korea. Our impression was that an appropriately low key attitude would continue to
I would tend to agree with paragraph 3 of Mr Stratton's letter that the Hong Kong delegation was perhaps on the large side.
serve.
2. On the question of whether the leader should be an expatriate or a Chinese, the matter is to my mind not quite so straightforward as is implied in Mr Stratton's paragraph 4. In a general ECAFE context, there are considerable advantages in delegations from dependent territories being staffed by natives rather than expatriates, and this perhaps applies particularly to the head of the delegation. So far as trouble arose and this was not much, I suspect that the cause was as much one of personality and approach.as of race. The Chinese delegation were patently playing themselves in very carefully at this year's ECAFE conference, and the attempt by Mr Ann to get their public acceptance obviously created difficulties for them. Mr Smith attempted to explain this, and the point appeared to be taken, although Mr Ann was observed later to have a tendency to hover around the edges of conversations between the British and the Chinese. However, a further public confrontation, which might have led to further embarrassment, was avoided. I should perhaps add that Mr Ho, the Hong Kong Director of Commerce and Industry, had a perfectly amiable conversation with the head of the Chinese delegation at the lunch given by the British.
3. So far as future ECAFE meetings are concerned we should, I think, expect the Chinese to continue to have difficulties, and it would be as well if the Hong Kong delegation avoided anything that might increase these. An expatriate head of delegation would probably help in so far as the Chinese are concerned, although there are disadvantages in relation to other delegations and our own image. An alternative policy would be to select an unofficial who could be briefed, and expected to be more unobtrusive than Mr Ann. (I do not know whether Mr Ann's affluence and position were as apparent to the Chinese as to the British, but I can only hope not). An additional thought is that the
CONFIDENTIAL
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