CONFIDENTIAL
Sis E. You
Mr Donald Parliamentary Unit
B/Mr Blakes
Никоно
PQs:
STATUS OF HONG KONG
- 5 DEC 1990
Cc:
Mr Clift FED
q
iSH
A
1. I submit a draft written answer to a PQ by Mr Frank Hooley MP
(Sheffield Labour).
-
28 on 29 October.
B
to $5.12
قبل
AN 31/2
It is pursuant to a question asked by Mr Hooley
2. The wording of Mr Hooley's current question has been incorrectly
printed.
It should read:
"To ask the Lord Privy Seal, pursuant to the Minister of State's
reply to the honourable Member for Sheffield, Heeley, on 29 October,
Official Report, column 294, whether he will set out the views
of Her Majesty's Government on the status of Hong Kong which
were described in the letter of 14 December 1972 as being well
known but were not set out".
3. In answering the question, I recommend that we use the formula
"dependent territory administered as part of Her Majesty's Dominions".
Legal Advisers, the Governor of Hong Kong, HMA Peking and FED concur.
This covers the status of Hong Kong in both international and UK
domestic law. In saying that it is a dependent territory, we imply
that it is a UK dependent territory in international law. In adding
a reference to Her Majesty's Dominions, we imply that it is a colony,
while avoiding explicit reference to the UK and the word 'colony'.
Attada yas
4. The letter of 14 December 1972, refered to in Mr Hooley's question,
was from the then Ambassador to the UN, Sir Colin Crowe, to the UN
Secretary-General. It was HMG's response to the Chinese Government's
request that Hong Kong (and Macao) be removed from the UN list of
dependent territories. In this letter, Sir Colin stated that the
decision to delete Hong Kong from the list "in no way affects the
legal status of Hong Kong" and that differing views expressed by other
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