COVERING
CONFIDENTIAL
布政司署
香港下亞厘畢道
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RECEIVER WE
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-9 FEB 1989
you have read
Alan Paul, Esq.,
Hong Kong Department,
Foreign & Commonwealth Office
NC 16/2
6/2
28 January 1989
No
Dear
Alan
Commonwealth War Graves
As foreshadowed in our telno 182, I enclose a paper setting out our thinking on the question of security of tenure of the two Commonwealth War Graves Commision Cemeteries (the Cemeteries) in Hong Kong after 1997 and our proposals on how best to deal with the request by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission (the Commision) to raise this matter for discussion with the Chinese. Copies of the documents referred to in the paper, viz. the Deeds of Appropriation and the letters exchanged between the Commission and the Director of Urban Services are enclosed for your reference.
On the question of the continued validity after 1997 of the two Deeds of Appropriation under which the land for the Cemeteries has been made available to the Commission, our view is that there is no reason why the Deeds of Appropriation should not remain valid after 1997 in accordance with our laws which under the relevant provision of the Joint Declaration (JD 53) shall be maintained. That said, we recognise that it is unlikely that the Commission's concerns would be sufficiently addressed by such assurances, and that in view of the commitment given by Mr. Richard Luce in Parliament, it would be necessary to take this matter up with the Chinese.
Our assessment is that it would be more appropriate to raise this matter in the Land Commission, rather than in the Joint Liaison Group.
be
Our proposals on how this subject should broached in the Land Commission are set out in paragraphs
10-11 of the paper. We have prepared a first working