CONFIDENTIAL
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Ender
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Mad Gully
Mr Banshya
13/5.
Summary record of a meeting between the Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary and the Governor of Hong Kong at the VIP Lounge Kai Tak Airport Hong Kong on Monday 3 May at 1415 egi
Present: Mr. Crosland
1.
Mr. Cortazzi
Mr. Fergusson
Sir Murray Maclehose
Sir Dennis Roberts
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Mr. Crosland said that he was not intending to raise Hong
He asked how the Kong questions during his visit to Peking. relationship with China looked from the Hong Kong point of view. Sir M. Maclehose said that the situation was calm and, compared with say 10 years ago, there had been a marked change in the atmosphere, especially since the exchange of Ambassadors between the United Kingdom and China. It was now possible to communicate with the Chinese, and information came both through the British Embassy and from the much greater number of visitors to Feking, who in turn reported in Hong Kong on what they had learned. This greater understanding had led to a marked increase of confidence (he cited the balanced reaction in Hong Kong to a report by US Congressman Woolf about what he had heard in China of Chinese intentions towards Hong Kong at the end of the lease period the report was merely the standard response by a junior official but ten years ago it would have caused a furore).
2. Mr. Crosland said that he looked forward to having more detailed discussons with Sir M. Maclehose when he returned to the UK in June. However, he wanted to stress the considerable pressure on Hong Kong questions with which he had been faced on becoming Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary from wit' in the Labour Party, both from the international Committee of the NEC and, even more important, from the TUC whose International
This Committee he had seen only days after his appointment. pressure was both for trades union participation in the Hong Kong Government (among the unofficial members of the Executive and Legislative Councils) and for social improvements.
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Sir M. Maclehose said that he fully understood these pressures. so far as social legislation was concerned he was himself firmly
it was his aim that committed to bringing about improvements. the standard of legislation in the social field and of social security benefits should be comparable with the best in the Far Eastern/South East Asian area ie with that introduced. a somewhat different situation and by different methods, in Singapore. However the question of trades union participation on the Legislative and Executive Councils was a more difficult question. He fully understood the need to find a way of satisfying the important pressure groups in the UK and he wondered whether it would not be possible to satisfy TUC and other pressures by movement on the social side rather than in terms of participation. Mr Crosland said that from what he had
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