CODE 18-77
SS 10/76
CONFIDENTIAL
HKK 184 13.
FEC 184/2
(119)
Reference
Mr Thompson (HKGD K245)
Mr Boon
(MAED G63A/1)_
No las
Separate copies
Пише
UNSCHEDULED FLIGHTS FROM CHINA TO HONG KONG
S16/12
1. Please refer to Mr Wilson's letter of 9 December to Mr Samuel (copy attached for MAED and Legal Advisers).
2. Although Mr Wilson makes it clear that the various ideas being tossed around in Hong Kong about non-scheduled and charter flights between China and Hong Kong have not been raised formally, I think it will be worth looking fairly carefully at the problem bearing in mind the following factors:
a.
There is likely to be pressure from a variety of quarters for easier travel between China and Hong Kong as China's foreign trade picks up: the pragmatists in power are likely to continue a range of policies which encourage greater contact between China and the outside world than the idealogues who liked to keep the world at arms length.
b. It seems quite probable that the Chinese Foreign Minister will take up the Secretary of State's invi- tation for him to visit the UK in the first half of 1978 and the question of the Air Services Agreement will have to be covered in briefing.
C.
In the matter of non-scheduled flights, the Chinese are to some extent the demandeurs. As long as the Air Services Agreement is stalled it seems worth considering whether our policy on non-scheduled flights should be designed to try and extract the same concessions from the Chinese: conversely, we need to be careful that too many precedents are not set which will reinforce Chinese adherence to their positions which led to the suspension of the Air Services Agreement negotiations.
d.
Passenger charter flights could theoretically open an avenue for fairly regular passenger traffic which the Chinese might just be persuaded to accept on different terms from passenger traffic arranged within the framework of a UK/China Air Services Agreement.
Since the blinding
of the Hong Kong-Peking sector was one of the commercial disadvantages for British Airways of the Chinese negotiating position on the Air Services Agreement, it might be worth seeing whether some commercial benefit to UK interests could be obtained in this way.
CONFIDENTIAL
/3...
Page 45Page 46