Mr Williamson J14
Mr Morrice or
Mr Clift
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discred.
Reference.
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FUTURE OF HONG KONG: NEW TERRITORIES LEASES
1.
2"/m.
Mr Clift's minute of 19 March, which I have just seen. Whatever the legal points, the problem may still be one of
convincing the Chinese that we are not stealthily seeking to extend the lease of the New Territories itself.
2.
Paragraph 1 of Mr Clift's minute: Mr Rushford refers to his opinion (agreed by Mr Hobley, then Hong Kong's Attorney General) of 16 November 1978. This does indeed confirm Hong Kong's right to issue fixed-term leases and a 75-year period was mooted, as for the rest of the Colony. However, it does seem to this layman that the validity of such fixed-term leases in the New Territories could still be challenged in the Hong Kong Courts as being ultra vires so far as they might relate to a period after 1997.
In that event, might we not be back to the need for an Order in Council in the UK and the same sort of Chinese objections of principle which we have already encountered? Is this not the force of Mr Murray's minute (on Mr Clift's of 11 March)?
3.
The history of Chinese interest in official representation in Hong Kong is certainly erratic and displays the quite ambivalent attitudes of the Chinese Government towards the subject (my Research Department draft memorandum charts much of this). Their problem, generally, is having to ask for official representation in a territory which they regard as part of China anyway.
4.
and
On Mr Clift's specific points:
a) China has no consular representation in Hong Kong and would certainly object to the proposal of the appointment of a "Consul General"
However, a Chinese visa-issuing office
•
has been agreed in principle and in name ("The Hong Kong Visa Office of the MFA of the PRC", please see Mr McLaren's submission of 3 August 1979). Evidence of just how ambivalent Chinese attitudes are, is that absolutely nothing has so far come of this office.
state the problem, which is one of striking the right balance between ambassadorial status (the term "Ambassador" would be anathema to the Chinese since Hong Kong is Chinese irredenta) and the Governor's reasonable anxieties about just how much say any Chinese representative might have in Hong Kong's internal affairs.
CODE 18-77
1 April 1980
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PI Webb
we