Mr Crowe, ECD(E)
MACAO AND THE EC
CONFIDENTIAL
Enter
cc:
Mr elift, HKGD
Dr Wilson, SED
Mik
02211
JWR Shakespeare Esq,
pasistl
Lisbon
12
1.
We have discussed your recent minute on this subject with HKGD. I agree with Mr Clift (his minute of 11 June) that we should oppose OCT status for Macao. At a time when we hope to start discussing the future of Hong Kong with the Chinese, anything that would cause a public commotion there should be avoided. I doubt whether there is any give in our position, which is dictated by Hong Kong considerations rather than the likely reaction of the Chinese; they might not be too strenuously opposed to special status for Macao, or indeed Hong Kong, depending on the way in which the justification for that status was defined. But we could not follow this through without damaging public debate in Hong Kong.
2.
As to arguments for use with the Portuguese, we are not of course going to convince them simply by saying that the Hong Kong Executive Council would not like it. But we could perhaps say that Hong Kong pressure for equal treatment with Macao, if granted special status, would make our negotiations on Hong Kong's future more difficult; and that in turn would probably diminish confidence in Macao and could even prejudice the future of the territory more substantively.
3.
If it is argued that Macao is not comparable economically to Hong Kong, we could say that while that is true in terms of GNP and of development of the financial sector of the economy, it is less so if industrial development and standards of living are applied as criteria:
4.
stage.
I agree that Ministers may need to be consulted at some
11 June 1982
Markę mok
Mark Elliott
Far Eastern Department
CONFIDENTIAL
14