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position of the Indian minority community in Hong Kong who have
been pressing for British citizenship. There will be two
months between publication and the first debate in Parliament
to allow the people of Hong Kong to express their views.
Basic Law
8.
A constitution has been established for the Basic Law
Consultative Committee in Hong Kong. Members are now being
chosen from various sectors of Hong Kong society. There has
been little progress in the actual drafting of the Basic Law.
Macau
BDTCs.
9. The Hong Kong Government initially asked Us to press the
Portuguese to ensure that Portuguese nationals by virtue of a
connection with Macau were treated no better than Hong Kong This resulted in unfavourable publicity for the Hong
Kong Government, particularly in the Far Eastern Economic Review. They have now decided they no longer wish to press us
on this matter. We have however raised the question with the
Home Office, pointing out its immigration implications for the
United Kingdom, and they are anxious that we should continue to
pursue the matter with the Portuguese.
are considering how
best to do this.
Civil Aviation
10. Talks took place in Peking at the beginning of this month
on a revised UK/PRC Air vervice Agreement which would allow Cathay Pacific to have more services to Chinese mainland cities
from Hong Kong than at the present. Initially, the Chinese
seemed receptive to these proposals, but subsequently backed
down. We think that this may be due to a division among the Chinese leadership between CAAC and supporters of Dragonair, a
newly established airline in Hong Kong financed by Chinese
capital.
in negotiations.
11. We have sought to engage the Australians of a separate Australia/Hong Kong Air Service Agreement. They
indicated that they are thinking of entering
Chinese before concluding such an
have
into
a dialogue with the
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