Lord Caithness
FROM: D A Warren
Far Eastern. Department
DATE:
23 January 1991
CC:
Miss Marsden, HKD
Mr Cowin, RAD
Mr Rankin, Legal Advisers
TER FROM HONG KONG REPARATION ASSOCIATION
lem
14,
The Hong Kong Reparation Association wrote to Lord Caithness on September to enlist our assistance in persuading the Japanese horities to honour currency issued during the Japanese occupation Hong Kong from 1941 to 1945. What reply should be sent?
ommendation
I recommend that a departmental reply be sent, explaining that re is no basis for us to approach the Japanese Government on this stion. I submit a self-explanatory draft, which, if the Minister
ees, could issue from this department. HKD agree.
kground and Argument
The Hong Kong Reparation Association sent a copy of their ter to Lord Caithness during his visit to Hong Kong in September.
is in identical terms to a text that they have distributed to
er addressees in the past. A substantive reply has been delayed ause of the need to carry out extensive research into exactly how problem of Japanese wartime currency was dealt with after 1945.
As the draft makes clear, the question of reparations from the anese for their actions during the Second World War was settled the 1951 Treaty of Peace. Legal Advisers confirm that the
/provisions