Мо
CONFIDENTIAL
British Embassy
11 Guang Hua Lu Jian Guo Men Wai
Peking People's Republic of China
Telex 22191 Cable Prodrome Peking Telephone 521961/2/3/4/5
Mr T W M Smith
Hong Kong Department
FCO
НКВ 020/2
Your reference
20/2
Mr. Ham Usehat
'ера
17/2
(62
Our reference
Date
7 July 1987
Dear Tom,
18
STRUCTURE OF HONG KONG AND MACAO AFFAIRS OFFICE AT THE MFA
1.
Recently I have been dealing with Cai Qiquan of the HKMAO of the MFA on Basic Law matters. His position in the structure of the HKMAO had never been very clear to me, so after I had conducted the business reported in Peking telegram Number 1261, I asked him about the structure of the HKMAO of the MFA.
2.
He said that as I (of course) knew, the HKMAO was divided into three Divisions. One of these dealt with Macao and was led by a Mr Li (I did not catch clearly his other name which sounded like Xihan). The other two divisions dealt with Hong Kong. One was led by Lin Zhiying (to whom he referred as a Division Chief) supported by Wang Weiyang; the other was led by himself (Shao Tianren introduced Cai as a Division Chief in the Legal Expert talks), supported by Liu Donghai (who has attended a JLG meeting before).
3.
Cai said he dealt with legal (including Basic Law), financial and constitutional (including political reform and the Green Paper in Hong Kong) matters. As a result, he was less directly involved in JLG affairs, which were mainly handled by Lin Zhiying's Division.
4.
Neither Carsten Pigott nor I was aware of this structure which might have evolved only relatively recently in order to cope with an increasing work load. In the circumstances, we shall endeavour to keep in rather closer touch with Cai in the future.
Yours ever,
Bob Wilson.
R C Wilson
Second Secretary
Deputy Secretary General Duties, HKG
cc : Mr Donald Tsang,
Mr C T Wood, APAI, Hong Kong
CONFIDENT TAT.
1