BY BAG
CONFIDENTIAL
Due/3
REF.
SCR 32/56 II
Repl
R.E.
15/6.
R M Evans Esq FED
F CO
My bear Richard,
HONG KONG AND ECAFE
ESPAIN
51 RIGHET01 19 JUN 1,3
HIKK 2/1
197
P
ARIAT
COLONIAL SECRETARIAT
LOWER ALBERT ROAD
HONG KONG
11 May, 1973
Phi Heiuly.
нето misoresby.
21
I shall have to reply. Do you have commeris?
Rin. Evens
19
18 May, 1973.
We have now had a rather fuller report on the recent ECAFE Session in Tokyo. This by and large confirms the impression given in my letter of 26 April to Roger Hervey. The Chinese did nothing which called in question Hong Kong's status or her right to be at the meeting. However, in general the Chinese seemed to have done their best to ignore the presence of Hong Kong representatives there. Specifically they did not greet our delegation (treating the Indians in the same way); they did not invite the Hong Kong delegation to their reception; and, while they could not avoid any reference to Hong Kong in documents, they asked for drafting changes to remove any suggestion that Hong Kong was a country; and I notice that NCNA reports for the most part avoided mentioning that Hong Kong was at the Session.
From our point of view the drafting changes asked for were the most important manifestation of the Chinese attitude. I enclose a paper by the Acting Director of Commerce & Industry who attended part of the Session. Clearly the Chinese bent over backwards to avoid taking open issue over the status of Hong Kong. This is gratifying and leads us to hope that we can continue to co-exist in ECAFE (although of course the Chinese have done nothing to prevent themselves raising the matter at a later date). I hope that we may meet the Chinese at least halfway in the matter of drafting, and thus avoid their having to ask even for such minor changes in future. the terms of reference of ECAFE Hong Kong's status is quite undefined and the generic and anodyne term "territory" is used for all members and associates without distinction. I hope that we can persuade the Secretariat to standardise on this usage in any context which refers to Hong Kong.
2.
3.
In
I do not think that the results of this year's Session call for any major change in our attitude to ECAFE. We shall continue to play things in fairly low key by being very careful about how we react to requests, for example to host ECAFE meetings in Hong Kong, particularly those which the Chinese might wish to attend. It may be too that our delegation this year was, by comparison with some others, a little large, and we might decide to trim it somewhat next year.
C.S. 41A
CONFIDENTIAL
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