CONFIDENTIAL
RECEIVED IN REGISTRY No. 51
A E Donald Esq Political Adviser Hong Kong
18 NOV 1974
930 8440
HKK 21/4
18 November 1974
LEGT
RE:
(25
27
REPAIRS TO SOVIET VESSELS IN HONG KONG
P.
1. Thank you for your telegram no 1139 giving your reaction to the Soviet Consul's recent complaint about treatment of Soviet seamen in Hong Kong and promising us a letter on the Soviet draft Convention on the Regime of Vessels in Foreign Ports. We look forward to receiving your comments on this.
His reference
2. On the first issue, though, I wonder if you could let us have now some more material which EESD might use in dealing with the Consul's complaint. What we would like to do, ideally, is go through his points item by item, refuting them as far as possible. to the Anglo-Soviet Treaty on Merchant Navigation can easily be dismissed, but we would welcome further material to deal with other points he made and which are set out in the second paragraph of the oral communication contained in Andrew Stuart's letter HKK 21/4 of 27 August to you. For ease of reference, these are:-
(i)
(ii)
(iii)
(iv)
(v)
Soviet seamen arriving in Hong Kong are "specially" photographed;
parties of only 5 persons are allowed to go ashore during the day;
Hong Kong immigration officers sometimes board Soviet vessels late in the evening for a roll-call of crew members;
the Hong Kong authorities have now demanded that crews of Soviet passenger ships be cut by 50% and those of cargo ships by 25%;
Soviet crew members considered by the Hong Kong authorities to be in excess of the above requirements are required to leave Hong Kong by the first Soviet vessel, regardless of its port of destination.
D
noted)
BU 3 weeks
ท
25/11
BU 6/1
BD
13. I
CONFIDENTIAL