700 telesPORT
Confidential
Routine
......
(for)
RFI Peking, Hong Kong (BCARTE)
A
Your Ter
1
atmuel Canton-Hong Kong.
If the ASA had been signed, we would have seen no difficulty in extending the CAAC permit. But it has not been signed and there is a possibility that it may not be, i). At a time when
Chinese we are exerting our best endeavours to get the to toe the line on Gatwick and thus remove the last obstacle to the ASA being signed during Chairman Hua's visit, it would be inappropriate to extend CAAC's operating permit, as though the bringing into force of the ASA had no relevance. We are therefore prepared for the time being to let CAAC suffer a little uncertainty.
2 If any further approach is made to DCA in the course of the
next two or three weeks and before there has been a clear indication
that CAAC is prepared to go to Gatwick, he should simply say that the UK Government see these services as coming within the ambit of the regional arrangements negotiated in Peking and embodied in the CMU. The CAAC Operating Permit will be put on to a more permanent footing just as soon as the ASA is signed.
B