DSR 11 (Revised)
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Secretary of State
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Reference
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Rt Hon John Biffen, MP
Secret
House of Commons
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Attorney-General
Sir R Armstrong
(bcc)
Sir G Engle
Parliamentary
Counsel
The talks with the Chinese are, as you know, progressing
well and we hope to be in a position to initial a draft
agreement before the end of September.
If we
are successful, we shall need legislation on a
future transfer of sovereignty before we can ratify and I
have written separately to Lord Whitelaw about this.
Enclosures-flag(s)...........
The immediate problem is that we need to agree with the
Chinese a date for ratification of the agreement, which
will be included in the Joint Declaration. The Chinese
originallly insisted that this should be within 30 days
of sovereignty, which, as you know, we have agreed should
take place before the end of the year. We have told the
Chinese that ratification will require legislation in the
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