CONFIDENTIAL
Secretary of State
in his statement
in the Commons on
6 June to match the four points announced by President
Bush today:
a)
Suspension of all Government-to Government Sales
As far as we are aware there are no British
Government sales to China. This measure is
therefore not applicable to the UK;
b) Commercial Exports of Weapons
We have discussed the suspension of all defence sales to China with MOD officials. They would have no
difficulty in principle with this but are concerned that any blanket ban on defence sales including those in the pipeline would result in the loss of the recently negotiated £30m contract won by GEC for ther supply of avionics equipment to the Chinese airforce for equiping Chinese aircraft destined for export to
Pakistan. They have suggested two possible ways
round this difficulty:
a) for the ban only to cover arms but not military
equipment;
b) for the ban only to apply to future contracts.
CONFIDENTIAL
/I