13 March 1992
CONFIDENTIAL
HKA 233/1
Foreign & Commonwealth
Office
Mrs S Brown HM Treasury LONDON
Dear Sandra,
HONG KONG HMOCS: BRIEFING THE CHINESE
1.
London SWIA 2AH
94
Many thanks for your very prompt consideration of our draft line for Tony Galsworthy to take in briefing the Chinese on this subject (my letter of 11 March). You will have seen the telegrams we sent to Hong Kong last night, reflecting your view that the speaking note should make no reference to sterling safeguards or give any details of the likely operation of the compensation/incentive scheme. (We were grateful for your agreement that the latter point could be covered orally if Tony Galsworthy judged desirable: our feeling here has been that without concrete indication of the scheme's operation the Chinese could jump to the wrong conclusions and react in an unhelpful way. We are satisfied that the "typical" example given is sufficiently vague and indicative to avoid any adverse consequences: as Nigel Cox explained to Kevin Woodfield last night, we judged it better in terms of handling the Chinese to cite a case of 150% annual salary as maximum entitlement, rather than 200%, ie an officer about 46 with at least 10 years' service, rather than someone a little younger.)
2.
The Chinese are likely to revert soon asking to know what are the other obligations which HMG owe to HMOCS officers after constitutional change. As we may need to agree a line on this rather quickly, I enclose a draft form of words which could serve at least as our starting point for discussion. To meet your concerns I have tried to draft the sterling safeguards point in vaguer terms than in our original draft speaking note. We do not want to mention the traditional right to retire when the constitutional change takes place, with immediate payment of pension: our argument is that this is not relevant in the Hong Kong context.
Ye
ever
PF Ricketts
Peter Ricketts
Hong Kong Department
cc: Mr Burns
Mr Kerby, ODA Mr Fish, ODA
BUNABS JRB
CONFIDENTIAL
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