SECRET
Reference.........
Ivey hepful.
Mr W Morris
Hong Kong Department
HI
1283
09
04875
287
A
FUTURE OF HONG KONG BRIEFING FOR AUSTRALIANS AND NEW ZEALANDERS
I welcome the suggestion that the briefing should be extended to include the New Zealanders.
1.
2. We have recommended that the Secretary of State should see the Australian Foreign Minister in New York when they are both there during the last three or four days of September. This would be an earlier and better occasion for Ministerial briefing of the Australians. We do not yet know whether recommendation will be accepted, but you may like to amend paragraph 3 of the submission and paragraph 3 of the draft letter to No 10 to record this possibility.
3. Another suggestion is that you might reconsider the line of argument in the letter to No 10. The draft makes rather a meal of Australian transgressions (which I do not dispute) before seeking the Prime Minister's agreement to our running the risk of New Zealand transgressions. Would it not be possible to open the draft with a general statement to the effect that we have been active but selective in briefing others about the develop- ment of the negotiations and that this effort has borne fruit? You might then refer to the Australian lapses and make the point that without the briefing they could well have been more serious.
4.
As for the New Zealanders, there is again a possibility that the Secretary of State may see their Foreign Minister in the near future and a call by Mr Cooper has been pencilled in the Secretary of State's diary for 13 October. You may wish to take account of this.
5. Strictly speaking, it is not correct to say, as in the penultimate sentence of paragraph 3 of the draft to No 10, that the New Zealanders have said that unless Mr Whitney is able to be forthcoming, the subject of Hong Kong had better be avoided in Wellington. As you will see from a copy of Wellington telno 250 (attached), this advice comes from our own High Commission (last sentence of paragraph 3).
to н
Chick
CODE 18.77
1 September 1983
SECRET
J S Chick
South Pacific Department