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exclude the negotiation of a bilateral agreement and agree that we could be in some danger of being left behind as more European countries sign up. If we are agreed amongst ourselves that this is the right course, there is particular advantage in taking it forward sooner rather than later: during the recent visit to the UK by the Chinese Foreign Minister, the Secretary of State outlined three areas of our bilateral relations to which we attach priority and in which we would like to channel our efforts. One of these was legal exchanges. Mr Wu agreed with our priorities. It would be of help to the Embassy when launching the proposal for negotiations to be able to refer to this meeting in the not too distant past.
5.
If we are in principle agreed, FED will circulate a speaking note for use by the Embassy in Peking. But before we do so we would need answers to the questions raised in paragrapa 3 of Miss Bailes' teleletter of 23 December 1987 to Mr Fletcher-Cooke. To summarise, these are:
what extent the agreement should be analagous to ose already concluded with other Western countries;
(3) what its scope should be;
(=) What we would propose as the first procedural step;
(a) Whether the exclusion of Hong Kong from the terms of the agreement should be flagged at an early stage.
6. I have the following initial comments on those questions:
(a) If I have interpreted correctly, the answer seems largely to be contained in Michael Carpenter's letter of 10 December 1987 to Mr Fletcher-Cooke when he says that
HKD 37/3" the subject matter of each of the four substantive
chapters [of the French Agreement] was in principle negotiable". I should be grateful for a form of words from Mr Carpenter to be included in Miss Bailes' speaking note on this aspect.
(b) I think we are all agreed that any agreement should exclude criminal matters, largely due to the
complications this would bring in our negotiations with the Chinese over Hong Kong and extradition. Mr Fifoot's minute of 10 December 1987 to Mr Wood comments that "so long as any matter relating to criminal law is excluded, I do not think that our embarking upon a negotiation with the Chinese and concluding a comparable [with the French] judicial assistance agreement would have any disadvantage for Hong Kong".
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