CONFIDEN TÍAL
S for S SNT CP
Mr Fu went on to say that, at the meetings in Guangdong last year attended by the DMHS and DAF, it had been suggested that a further meeting should be held in the summer. The PA commented that Hong Kong would like to see a meeting early in the summer, e.g. in April. Mr Fu said that a meeting should be held when necessary, perhaps in Shenzhen. He agreed that a meeting should
be arranged at a time to be suggested by the PA to NCNA.
(5) Farming on the Hong Kong side of the border by commune members. Mr Fu said that we had already managed to solve the problem of those crossing the border to cultivate fields (i.e. tolerated border crossers). Some means needed to be found of establishing contact to deal with problems like land ownership. The CS commented that land ownership was something which would probably need to involve the District Office which was the authority on such matters. Mr Fu said there had been discussion about a particular problem last year in which Mr Johnson, the District Officer North, had been involved. But this had not yet been solved. The PA said that this matter had been discussed recently with NCNA and a suggestion had already been made for a second meeting. He was not familiar with all the details but, from what he had been told, he thought the only way of solving this particular problem would be to have recourse to the Hong Kong courts.
S for S CP
(6)
D of I
HSI
General summing up
(a)
(b)
Security.
The PA said that Mr Fu's response to the points which had been raised earlier had been very helpful and constructive. It seemed to him that what was needed on security matters was two meetings. One would be in Guangzhou with a group from Hong Kong which he would lead. A second series would be at a lower level at the border. The CS added that it would probably be best to have the Guangzhou meeting first to establish what sort of matters might be discussed at the lower- level meeting.
-
The PA went on to say that we had earlier suggested direct contacts - e.g. by telephone to deal with immigration matters. These were the sort of day- to-day problems which arose. What was the difficulty on the Chinese side? Mr Fu said that if a system of meetings at the border could be set up, these could deal also with problems such as immigration. The important thing was to have a method of dealing with matters on the spot rather than the time-consuming process of going through NCNA and the FAO in Guangdong.
Shenzhen officials visiting Hong Kong. Finally
Mr Fu said that at low-level meetings between the two sides over Christmas and the Spring Festival, the suggestion had apparently been made by the
/contd.
•
3.