DRAF T
THE 1991 ANNUAL OUT OF AREA REPORT
INTRODUCTION
1. Although the 1990 Annual Out of Area (00A) Report was cancelled due to staffing pressures caused by the Gulf crisis, there remains the requirement to address the objectives laid on the Out of Area Coordinating Group (00ACG) by Chiefs of Staff (COS) in January 1990. Whilst the scope of this report has therefore been widened to cover 24 months of 00A business, only those events of 1990 which still have a direct bearing on our 00A policy have been included.
2
AIM
The aim of this paper is to report on objectives set by COS, to review 00A events of the calendar years 1990/91, and to propose objectives for 00ACG business in 1992.
POLICY, FRAMEWORK AND OBJECTIVES
3. The objectives set for the 00ACG by COS in the 1990 Report are carried forward to this report and are as follows:
a.
To assess the effects of our efforts to maintain Defence relations in the Far East, particularly in view of the waning of the Hong Kong focus.
(1) Confidence in Hong Kong has made a steady recovery since the events in Tiananmen Square in June 1989. Improvements were, however, seriously undermined in the first half of 1991 by the poor state of Sino-British relations and Sino-Hong Kong relations, largely as a result of the protracted and often bitter dispute over the new airport. These difficulties notwithstanding, the agreement reached at the beginning of July 1991, and the Prime Minister's consequential visit to Peking in September, opened the way for further improvement in relations, and the resumption of useful work by the Joint Liaison Group (JLG).
(2) There remain, however, deep differences between Britain and China about how the administration of Hong Kong should develop before and after 1997. The basic, unspoken dispute is between our commitment to maintaining the Hong Kong Government's authority before 1997 and, for the longer term, to building and protecting Hong Kong's autonomy. In essence, the UK wishes to minimise the negative impact on Hong Kong of the change of sovereignty and to build up confidence that the Chinese will honour the
letter of the Joint
spirit as well as the
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SECRET UK EYES A