CONFIDENTIAL
KUKK 012
30
Foreign and Commonwealth Office
London SW1A 2AH
RECHIVED 11.
Telephone 01-
17 OCT 1984
ao
Your referenceTM
RP Margolis
Deputy Political Adviser
HONG KONG
Reg
Our reference
Date
17 October 1984
Den Richal,
(Pl. Copy to thr Ashion FED
Copy without
19/10 enclosures)
HONG KONG TERMINOLOGY IN THE UNITED NATIONS
fur thou fin UND
Mer Wye & Research Dept
This torphet
@
میارم
1. Now that we are no longer totally preoccupied with the Hong Kong negotiations we need to consider another, lesser problem left over from history, namely an outstanding point relating to the description of Hong Kong in a UNIDO document. The present position is described in correspondence resting with Ingham's letter of 13 March to Berman: I enclose all the papers.
2.
When we began looking into the background to this problem, it became clear that we did not have a really precise picture of the position taken over the years by the Chinese on Hong Kong terminology in the United Nations, and that the standard guidance on the subject issued by this department was accordingly over- simplified. We therefore put in hand some historical research. This proved to be time consuming at a time when both Research Department and ourselves were heavily taken up with the negotiations. It was also relevant that we would not have wanted to have this subject raised with the Chinese, even in the relatively remote context of a UN organisation, at a time when the Hong Kong negotiations were in progress. Hence the delay.
3. The outcome of our research is now summarised in the enclosed note, which we have produced with the help of Research Department. It emerges from this that the Chinese position over Hong Kong terminology has not been entirely consistent. Despite the assertion in our standard guidance note, the term "territory" has not always been favoured by the Chinese when applied to Hong Kong: all has depended on the context. Our own position is not particularly well documented. Despite our general dislike for the term "area" applied to Hong Kong we appear to have acquiesced in the heading "countries and areas" in United Nations statistical publications including Hong Kong so long as
a disclaimer
to the effect that "country or area" should be interpreted to cover countries, territories
areas.
4. Now that the status of Hong Kong after 1997 is no longer in doubt, it ought to be possible for both sides to be relatively relaxed. We would of course expect the Chinese to seek to maintain the formal position that Hong Kong is not a country, and we too would want to prevent any such error from cropping up in UN
CONFIDENTIAL