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about how we would justify it.)
8.
Employment in other DTS. Mr Waters pressed for news on this: I could give him none. He said that the Governor was willing to write personally to the PUS, if we thought this would be helpful. (Action. This seems to me a good idea. Unless you disagree, could you please telephone Mr Waters to encourage him to put a draft to PS/GH no need to consult us on line.)
9. Police localisation. This is not Mr Waters' area, but he showed me some pretty alarming statistics about the slow pace of localisation in the RHKP. Only 40% of gazetted officers (199 out of 491) are local now. Even if HKG were now to stop all promotion of expatriate officers, by 1997 several key ranks would still be 50% expatriate. Moreover there are fears that many local officers will leave before 30 June 1997. (Comment. I think we shall have to enquire more closely into this, perhaps after Mr Patten has taken up his post. We shall also ahve to talk to the Chinese about the problem sooner rather than later. It will not be easy to bring them to see that we need to cooperate to tackle a real problem: they will suspect that we are seeking to put pressure on them by threatening a break-down in the RHKP: and that any solutions we propose are aimed at preserving British influence after 1997.)
10. Other overseas officers. I mentioned Mr Fifoot's point about sterling safeguards in other DTS applying to some overseas officers other than HMOCS members. Mr Waters said that he would send us figures of the number of non-HMOCS overseas pensioners and non-HMOCS overseas officers employed on permanent and pensionable terms. The latter group probably consisted of about 20 confidential assistants and senior secretaries, some of whom are wives of HMOCS officers. The former group included the Indian and Pakistani police rank-and-file recruited in the 1950's: most had retired to the Sub-continent and would know nothing of HMOCS arrangements but we could expect to hear from them if the SARG defaulted on theirpensions or if they became valueless.
m
N J Cox
Hong Kong Department
23 June 1992.
cc Mr Fifoot
Mr Fish, ODA Miss Williams. My Ricketts
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