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the South Vietnamese would be operating a state trading system, Rowever, the question of any representation depended upon much vider issues and would have to be dealt with in London. It vas material, for instance, to know what the stages in the reunification of Vietnam were going to be and how long it would take to establish diplomatic relations between London and Saigon.
5.
Huynh then turned to the question of air links and the possibility of restoring air communications between Saigon and Hồng Long. He said that he had hoped through Mr Drace-Francis to have arranged a meeting with the acting head of the Civil Aviation Department in Hong Kong but so far this had not been possible. I thereupon arranged for Graeme Wilson (BCARFE) and Brian Keep to call at the Bank of China for a discussion with them that afternoon. I said that a matter of some interest to us, in view of the amount of fuel which was being expanded by airlines flying round Vietnam, was the question of over flying rights. Huynh said that this could of course be discussed and what they needed was some indication of our interest in writing which he could then convey to his authorities in saigon.
6.
Huynh also said how pleased they were that the postal service had been resumed between Saigon and Hong Kong.
7.
During the discussion of links between Hong Kong and South Vietnam, Huynh affirmed that the policy of the PRG was to "forget the past and look to the future". However, before entering a new stage in relationships between Hong Kong and Vietnam, the unresolved question of property belonging to the South Vietnamese people had to be settled. In the case of the Boeing 707 which had belonged to Air Vietnam, they had encountered difficulties and they had felt obliged to release the press statement at the end of their last visit. He hoped that I would understand that they had "no choice" in this matter. I said that, having served five years in a communist country, I well understood the kind of friction that arose between a communist system and a free enterprise system such as ve had in Hong Kong It was almost impossible to avoid differences of view, particularly where a government thrown up by a "national revolutionary movement” felt that it could not accept the jurisdiction of the capitalist legal system, However, the fact was that we had different social systems, and on our side ve were absolutely bound by the legal decision of the supreme Court of liong Kong which had decreed that the aircraft belonged to Pan Am. I said that in my experience in conducting business with the Chinese it was often helpful to acknowledge that wa had straight disagreements but to put these questions on one side and get on with the matters on which we could co-operate.
For
muynh asked that the liong Kong authorities should detain the Boeing 707 at Kaí Tak by administrative means. example, he thought that it would be in contravention of international civil aviation regulations if the aircraft flev without a pilot of Vietnamese nationality. Ferhaps our air control people could refuse to let the aircraft fly on groun of air safety? I said that there was nothing I could do to
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