CONFIDENTIAL
that CAL would continue to operate scheduled services only to Hong Kong. The PRC authorities could rest assured that CAL would be excluded from operating scheduled services to London. In the case of Japan however both CAAC and CAL operated scheduled services to Tokyo. Our starting position in respect of services by British airlines to Taiwan and China was the equivalent of the final position achieved by the Japanese, which was apparently acceptable to the PRC, ie.
Services to PRC would be operated by British Airways, our national airline, while services to Taiwan would be operated by CPA, an entirely private airline. Similarly JAL, the national airline of Japan, operated to PRC, while JAA, a subsidiary of JAL but a separate company operated Japan's services to Taiwan.
Background to Political Issues
6
that
Mr Samuel pointed out when the 1972 agreement about exchange of Ambassadors was
Government signed a communique was issued recognising the Peking as the sole legal government of China. We acknowledged the position of the Chinese Government that Taiwan is a proving of China. We agreed with them/any questions were asked about status of Taiwan we would reply that it was a matter to be resolved by the Chinese themselves. Our position was clarified by a statement in the Commons by the Foreign Secretary. We regarded this as the umbrella political position applicable to all agreements. Despite our view that we did not consider it necessary we had been prepared in 1975 to offer to be more explicit concerning the application of our original statement of the political position to the air services situation. However this would not have represented any change in our position. Mr Shen explained that the Chinese regarded the Air Services Agreement as different from others, hence the need for a special political declaration.
Latest Position
7 Mr Rogers suggested that a misunderstanding appeared to have arisen Concerning the conversation between Mr Clinton Davis and the Chinese Vice Minister during the latter's recent visit to London, Mr Clinton Davis had no recollection of having discussed air services with the Chinese Vice Minister. Misunderstanding or not it was perhaps opportune that this present meeting was how taking place. He had been much encouraged while attending the ICAO Special Air Transport conference in Montreal
to have had informal contact with the leader of the Chinese delegation who had said there remained no problems in the way of signature of the ASA, and he hoped that we might now find a solution to this long-outstanding problem.
8
Mr Liu thanked Mr Rogers for the very helpful survey. He explained neither he nor Mr Shen had been directly involved with the negotiation of the ASA nor had they attended the Clinton Davis/Tseng Sheng discussions, so they were not experts in the matter. However he personally felt that there was perhaps a potential difficulty to be overcome in the use of Hong Kong airport by both CAAC flights and CAL flights.
Conflicting use of Hong Kong airport
9
Mr Rogers explained that at the negotiations the issue of operations at Hong Kong had been taken into account. It had been envisaged CAAC would not operate scheduled services to HKG. We had been aware CAAC had operated charter and maintenance flights to Hong Kong on an irregular basis and the understanding was that they would continue to do so. Indeed CAAC has operated such flights to Hong Kong throughout the period since the 1973 negotiation (the latest example were the recent series of charter flights carrying soft-shell crabs from Shanghai to Hong Kong). We had authorised these flights through the DCA in Hong Kong. Signature of the ASA would not change this position