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it is not reasonable for
HMG to expect the Hong Kong Government to more than treble this in a year for a garrison of 4 1/3 units. And the public at large would have no confidence in a government that agreed to do so.
Although the Hong Kong Government is not elected, I think it is far too little understood in Westminster that it is subject to just the same pressures as elected governments are. It must retain consent. In UK political terms that is a very small matter. But in Hong Kong political terms it is a very big one, and can be exploited in particularly unpleasant and emotive ways. It lends itself to joining with other quite unconnected but equally emotive issues such as HMG's frustration of the application of the death penalty in Hong Kong and restrictions on Hong Kong's exports and thus boil up into a major crisis of confidence in the UK.
I must repeat most strongly we cannot both preserve our credibility and agree to such a proposition, and you will accept that I have steadily so advised HMG in this sense, am most disappointed that my advice is now disregarded.
and
A garrison and a British contribution to the garrison are esse..tial for Hong Kong. I have never denied that an increase in Hong Kong's contribution was due.
It was my view that the correct cost sharing arrange- ment would be 50:50. While this would have nearly doubled the contribution of Hong Kong, it would have more than halved the UK Government's contribution and this position would have been well within HMG's publicly stated position which is a substantiel increase in Hong Kong's contribution. I also think such equality of burden sharing would have been acceptable to the population. However, with cost inflation in the sterling content of the garrison even this proposition is becoming increasingly difficult,
I therefore suggest that in the course of the negotiations we will now undertake we should make every effort to sec if some compromise cannot be found that will close the gap between us.
The major issue is the burden sharing formula, but there are other aspects of the agreement we would like to discuss with you that might make their contribution towards narrowing the gap. In particular we are concerned at
ways of limiting any differential rates of inflation that may develop between the two economics so as to make the commitment involved in the inflator less open-ended;
the overheads of the garrison, and in particular the UK content of support and headquarters personnel and its sterling expenditure generally, and the methods by which it is calculated.
/Though this
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