lai22.3
BY FAX
CONFIDENTIAL
Foreign & Commonwealth
Office
(17
22 March 1993
Peter Lai Esq
Government Secretariat
HKB
Lower Albert Road HONG KONG
Dear Peter,
020/1
RECEIVED IN REGISTRY
26
DESK OFFICER
REGISTRY
INDEX
PA
Action Taxan
London SWIA 2AH
Telephone: 071-
fax
Ms More Cisli
THE FUTURE OF HONG KONG'S LINKS WITH THE COMMONWEALTH
Za
21311
Zes
Thank you for your letters of 9 December and 4 February about a draft Executive Council memorandum on the future of Hong Kong's links with the Commonwealth.
I am sorry our reply has taken a little time: we have been collecting views from the (widely-dispersed) Whitehall Departments with an interest in the various Commonwealth issues covered in your Annexes.
We agree with the approach in your draft memorandum.
As you say, Hong Kong's links with the Commonwealth can no longer continue at governmental level after 1997 but there is no reason why this should preclude informal links where possible. I imagine that, in many cases, it is the network of informal links that is of most benefit to Hong Kong organisations. The more of these that can be transformed into links with individual institutions or Commonwealth countries, the better from the point of view of presenting a "stealth" target to the Chinese. We agree that it would be wholly counterproductive to raise with the Chinese either the general question of Commonwealth links, or the move to informal relations. They would be bound to see this as a strategy for retaining British influence covertly.
Our Legal Adviser has commented that the Chinese may find difficulties with the proposed alternative links detailed in Annex A items 1 and 6, (and in particular 6(b)) and Annex C, item 7. It seems to us that the answer is to get these links established now on an informal basis, so that they can be well entrenched by 1997. There is no reason why any of them should be particularly visible once the SAR is established. We are content with the proposed continued links with the Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) (Annex C, item 2). Are you in touch with the CWGC locally?
CONFIDENTIAL