dti
the department for Enterprise
2
Regulations (WATTC 88) as providing support for such a view, the interpretation here of the phrase "Members may allow administrations or other organisations or persons to enter into such special mutual arrangements with ....." is that this would require some specific authority to be granted to the Hong Kong Administration in the normal way.
If only as an indication that we do understand your concerns and have tried to find a way which would help to meet them, may I put to you the possibility that rather than sign a document with the MPT which described itself as a special arrangement, you should agree with the MPT that you would each on a certain date make a unilateral declaration of policy as regards international telecommunications traffic between Hong Kong and Japan and vice versa, such unilateral declaration covering the same ground as in the UK Japan arrangement (ie specifying what VADS providers would be allowed to offer over IPLCs to particular countries), leaving it to the commercial organisations concerned (and to which reference is made under Article 9.1) to make the special mutual arrangements with relevant partners across the water. You may want to give this some further thought before reaching a decision on whether to seek formal authorisation from here to proceed.
We see no difficulty with the notion that the discussions which lead up to the arrangement or declaration should be undertaken between Hong Kong and the other relevant administrations. But as noted above if you were to sign an actual agreement with a foreign administration, you would need authority from London to do so.
On the political aspects I assume that the views you put to me about the 1997 question were based on advice from your General Duties Branch. It is clearly for you to consider whether it is better to have a short term agreement, thereby avoiding the need for prior consultation, or whether to go for a long term agreement with built in provision for review which would require consultation at this stage. Nevertheless, since such arrangements will certainly be required after 1997, it may in the long run be better to secure Chinese agreement to the idea of such arrangements now, using those to be agreed with Japan as the peg on which to hang an approach to the Chinese. If they accept this, and you are given a general entrustment in this area, that should obviate the need for detailed individual consultation with Peking on further arrangements in the future, although they would at least need to be made aware of them.
The FCO do not, however, challenge the view you put to me that if the agreement could genuinely be described as lasting only for a short time (ie ending before 1997) and is not likely to
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