HKK 302/548/1
LAST
Sir Denys Roberts KBE QC Government Secretariat HONG KONG
NEXT REF.
10
12 May 1977
1121(302/540/1
(1976)
FINANCIAL TIMES: ARTICLE ON THE UK/HONG KONG RELATIONSHIP
1.
You will wish to know that David Housego, a correspondent on Asian affairs for the "Financial Times" will be coming to Hong Kong at the end of this week to prepare articles on Hong Kong, with particular reference to the UK/Hong Kong relationship. Housego has his own contacts in Hong Kong, including Derek Davies and others on the "Far Eastern Economic Review", and will be making his own arrangements,
2. Housego came to see me and Derek Milton on 10 May for a background briefing on the UK/Hong Kong relationship. The talk we had with him covered much the same ground as that I had towards the end of last year with Breach of the Asian "Wall Street Journal" (my letter of 7 December refers). Once again, the question was raised of the existence of a "position paper on Hong Kong. I batted this back at Housego on the I same lines as I had done with Breach. I said that I could understand why there had been assertions in Hong Kong last year about "British interference" - I mentioned the reactions to the Defence Costs Agreement and textiles as areas where the UK and Hong Kong had not seen fully eye to eye but the fact was that nothing was done in Hong Kong that was not in the interests of the local population. I emphasized the Governor's long-standing commitment to the improvement of social conditions and drew Housego's attention to the Governor's statement in the Legislative Council last October, a copy of which we gave him.
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3. For the rest, I explained how the "dialogue" between us works two-way visits and correspondence - and told Housego of the different pressures at work in the UK, e.g. the textiles "constituency". I emphasized that while HMG could not ignore these pressures it was not Ministers' intention to allow them to dictate what was done in Hong Kong. Housego seemed to think that the large number of PQs on Hong Kong over the past eighteen months the details of which we gave him -- suggested that there was increasing concern and interest in Parliament in the