布政司署
香港下亞厘畢道
CONFIDENTIAL
**OUR REF.: SCR 14/2091/82
YOUR REF.:
W.G. Ehrman, Esq., Hong Kong Department FCO.
dear
ain
DIFU ET MON
HEH 040/28
нын
RECEIVED IN REGISTRY
DESK OFFICES
INDEX
PA241
GOVERNMENT SECRETARIAT LOWER ALBERT ROAD
5 NOV 1935
D
HONG KONG
18 October 1985
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VISA ABOLITION FOR HONG KONG BDTCs : FRG
156
Hong Kong telno 2019 refers. Thank you for holding up the action. I gave lunch for the FRG Consul-General on 10 October, attended also by Regina Ip and Alan Carter. We thanked Kuehn warmly for his efforts so far and took the opportunity to massage his ego.
On substance, he had three points of concern: whether the Germans would be hogtied after 1997, were they to liberalise their regime now; returnability (including the important point of who pays); and the problem of political refugees. Regina's minute enclosed records the technical answers given to these specific problems.
Beyond this of course we did our best to allay general and predictable misty German anxieties. We said it was perfectly reasonable to put such questions; but the Joint Declaration was a solid fact; it provided a real basis for sustained local confidence; we aimed to administer Hong Kong up to 1997 fairly and firmly so that people would, precisely, want to stay; meanwhile one of the biggest generators of sustained confidence would be a feeling on the part of the people of Kong Kong that they were welcome elsewhere as travellers and traders.
For the record also, since this does not emerge from the enclosure, we made it clear (under question and answer 3) that we would and could not commit HMG in the UK to any particular bilateral/reciprocal arrangement; that the question of political persecution, though understood as a German preoccupation in context, was an entirely hypothetical proposition here (question 4) - vide the Joint Declaration; and (under question 5) that when UK Missions repatriated people they did of course exact certain assurances.
CONFIDENTIA
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