Registry No.
SECURITY CLASSIFICATION
To
DRAFT
LETTER
Top Secret.
Secret.
Confidential.
Restricted.
Unclassified.
PRIVACY MARKING
Mike Pattison Esq 10 Downing Street LONDON SW1
In Confidence
DSR 11
Type 1 +
From
Private Secretary
Telephone No. Ext.
Department
The Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary has agreed to
Mr Blaker's plans to visit Indonesia, the Philippines.
Singapore, Hong Kong and the New Hebrides during the Summer
Recess. His visit to the New Hebrides would be to attend,
with his French opposite number, the Constitutional
Conference, which we hope will lead to independence for the
territory early next year. Normally a Constitutional
Conference is held in the metropolitan capital, but as the
New Hebrides is a Franco-British condominium, the only
procedure acceptable to all three parties is to hold it in
the New Hebrides. We have already agreed dates (17-19
September) with the French Government.
The ASEAN countries (Indonesia, Malaysia, the
Philippines, Singapore and Thailand) are of considerable
importance to Britain politically and economically and of
course Malaysia and Singapore are prominent and friendly members of the Commonwealth. As the Secretary epistate
recently visited Malaysia himself, Mr Blaker need not go
there next month he may visit Malaysia, Thailand and
Brunei in conjunction with a Conference of our Heads of
Mission in South East Asia which we are planning to hold in
Bangkok in January 1980. A visit to Hong Kong during the
Recess would be a valuable opportunity to review progress on
/the
Dd 0532000 800M 5/78 HMSO Bracknell
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