CONFIDENTIAL
Mr Watanabe in advance of the speech. At the same time, he
brought him up to date on the airport project.
4.
Progress on the new airport for Hong Kong has been hampered
by the unwillingness of the Chinese to agree to the proposed financing arrangements. On 9 September the Chinese side of the airport committee made certain suggestions which we built on in
reverting to them on 16 September with a full set of proposals.
Our proposals would eliminate almost all of the "problems" the
Chinese had identified, but were conditional on the Chinese
agreeing that the Special Administrative Region Government's
share (as well as HKG's share) of the premia from land sold to the airport railway corporation should be invested in the
Airport project. There has been no official reaction as yet,
but the left wing press has been highly critical another
British trick.
-
5.
We have had no success in engaging the Japanese in the
establishment of separate agreements with Hong Kong on air
services and visa abolition, probably because of a combination
of MFA suspicion of Chinese intentions for 1997 and internal bureaucratic wrangling.
Hong Kong Department
7 October 1992.
CONFIDENTIAL
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