CONFIDENTIAL
B
UK/CHINA AIR SERVICES AGREEMENT
1. An agreement regulating air services on the trunk route
between Britain and China was initialled in Peking on 13 June.
During the negotiations which preceded the initialling the
Chinese did not raise any of the several difficult points
relating to Hong Kong or services between Hong Kong and Taiwan
which we feared they might. We had no reason to suppose that
the initialling would not be followed by formal signature as
soon as the necessary preparation of the texts was complete.
We were in favour of rapid signature so as to enable BOAC to
introduce its first direct flights from London to China with
the changeover to the winter timetable on 1 November 1973.
2.
Contrary to our expectations the Chinese did not respond
to our pressure to proceed to early signature. At first they gave the impression that the difficulties were purely admini-
strative, but on 18 August the Head of Western European Depart-
ment at the MFA gave HM Ambassador the first informal advance
warning that the Chinese were considering raising a substantive point, namely a demand to "get rid of" the official signs on
aircraft coming from Taiwan to Hong Kong. Mr Wang drew a clear
connection between this demand and the unresolved difficulties
in the air services negotiations between China and Japan.
3.
Sir John Addis was instructed to reply (which he did on 29 August) that HMG were extremely disappointed and concerned that the Chinese appeared to wish to raise a new point which was not discussed during the air service negotiations (although
CONFIDENTIAL
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