18.
7 MON
SECRET
HUD 444/
Foreign and Commonwealth Office
London SW1A 2AH
Telephone: 01-211-3215
28 March 1988
Don Brech Esq
Government Records Co-ordinator
Government Secretariat
Lower Albert Road
HONG KONG
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Dear Dow
HONG KONG GOVERNMENT RECORDS
1. It will, I am sure, not surprise you to learn that I have been expecting a letter along the lines of yours of 16 March for some time, It raises questions which will engage us, and probably our successors, until your exercise is completed.
2. Let me say at once that it is not going to be possible to cross check every single item. We do not attempt to do this with governments such as Australia or the USA with whom we share many records and more information. The arrangements we have are directed towards items that fall outside established guidelines, or other material which raises doubts in the mind of its custodians whether or not it should be released.
3.
If we apply this general principle to your particular problems, our decisions to release or withhold taken independently will be based on the revised guidelines to which we are both working. We would expect to consult, or be consulted, only on borderline cases, or where the topic is not covered by the guidelines. Examples where your records are concerned would be political and other papers relating to Australia, UK/USA relations, Kashmire etc. In such instances, the normal practice is to send a photocopy of the document for scrutiny, a practice which greatly speeds up the clearance process.
4.
Your present problem is concerned with political and other reports copied to the Hong Kong Government for information. These should have been destroyed as ephemeral (and duplicate) soon after they were received. In our view, this should now be done. The alternative is for you to copy each paper, or at least any which appear to you to be doubtful, to us. We hold no master list of individual despatches and comparable papers
/released,
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