14 December 1992
W Ehrman Esq Political Adviser Hong Kong
(by fax)
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is Barres Jones
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Miss Blurs/
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Foreign & Commonwealth
Office
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London SWIA 2AH
Telephone: 071-
HICO 021/1 வ/
270 2951
44
Dear
William.
MY LETTER OF 6 NOVEMBER IN HONG KONG
1.
C
PROPOSED UK/JAPAN/HONG KONG CONFERENCE
We have recently seen a copy (courtesy of the 2000 Group) of the Governor's reply of 9 November to David Howell's letter of 22 October about the proposed conference in Hong Kong. Nevertheless, I would still welcome your views on the content for the conference suggested in my letter to you of 6 November. 2000 Group are actively discussing the idea and it would be helpful to feed in our thoughts at an early stage. I do of course recognise that you have many more pressing problems.
2. I enclose the draft of a letter from David Howell to Motoo Shiina, Japanese Chairman of the 2000 Group, which gives an idea of the form the conference might take, together with a re-draft we have done here to take into account Chinese sensitivities. Your early comments on this too would be welcome, to enable the letter to issue soon. It would be useful to have your (and Peking's) view on attendance/participation by representatives from the PRC in the conference. Our feeling is that the round table segment should be in the UK/Hong Kong/Japan format. strong objective for us is to use this as a means of boosting UK/Japan exchanges, perhaps with a particular commendation from the two Prime Ministers when/if they meet earlier in the year. Hong Kong fits naturally into that. But PRC representatives will be invited to the "platform" segment, not least because they might cause more trouble if excluded.
3. You will see that one of the main sessions at next year's 2000 Group conference, which the Governor will attend, will be "Hong Kong and South China in an Asia/Pacific context". We are of course happy that this should be discussed with the eminent and influential Japanese who we hope will be at the conference, but are you and Peking happy that this should figure so prominently, albeit in a select and essentially private gathering?
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