CONFIDENT I AL
4.
The main
subject of
discussion at the
Hong Kong's
first
continued
meeting of the Group was
participation in the GATT. We proposed that Hong Kong should become a separate contracting party to the GATT
now and continue to be one after 1997. The Chinese
we re suspicious of this proposal, although they did
not reject it outright, and countered that Hong Kong
should continue to participate in the GATT after 1997
under a Chinese umbrella (once China has joined the
GATT) as it currently participates under a British
umbrella. We see serious problems in the Chinese
approach. We will raise this again at the second
meeting of the group in the hope of shifting the
Chinese.
5.
We also raised the question of
Hong Kong's
participation in
the Asian Development Bank. The
Chinese were more forthcoming on this and agreed that
China would take over the UK's guarantee of Hong
Kong's financial liabilities to the Bank in 1997, and that it had no objection to Hong Kong increasing these liabilities by participating in the forthcoming Third
General Capital Increase.
6.
We also raised with the Chinese the mammoth task of renegotiating Hong Kong's participation in hundreds
of multilateral
and
bilateral
agreements and
international organisations. We propose to create a legal sub-group to deal with this subject.
7.
the
concentrate
on
to
During the first half of its life we hope that
Group will
on Hong Kong's
international obligations, and only move
discussing transitional measures in the second half.
We need to adopt
to adopt a positive approach to the Group but at the s ame time to prevent any Chinese attempts to
interfere in the day to day administration of the
territory.
So far none have been
evident.
CONFIDENTIAL