20 November 1992
CONFIDENTIAL
нич
091/2
Foreign & Commonwealth
Office
London SW1A 2AH
WIDI
Christopher Meyer Esq CMG WASHINGTON
♡ Corn M. Atwo
О
Сови
th Davies, For
M. Cane, from Adv.
© M
23/11
Mr White 23/21 My Turney
dear chis,
CHINA/MFN
1.
pa
Many thanks for your letter of 14 October.
Select
السلام
You helpfully
put your finger on an important issue about which we need to start thinking now. You will have seen the subsequent rounds of telegrams resting with Washington telno 2497 and Hong Kong's response in their telno 2720.
2. I think some useful common ground emerges from these exchanges :
we should continue for the present making the simple point in Washington that withdrawal of MFN status would badly damage Hong Kong. We agree with the two lobbying stages you identify in para 11 of Washington telno 2497. It will clearly be important to get the message across to new arrivals in Congress;
but we should be under no illusion that the new President would be willing to veto a bill along the lines of that enclosed with your letter. Resting our strategy on efforts to persuade him otherwise would not be prudent;
27%
we should therefore as you suggest be looking for ways in which legislation might be amended to draw its teeth as far as Hong Kong is concerned. The tactics of deploying any such ideas in Washington will need careful thought so as not to muddy our basic message or to turn what is at present a cooperative relationship with the Chinese on this issue into a further bone of contention.
chinamfn.SA.kr
CONFIDENTIAL