CONFIDENTIAL
87
132260
MDHIAN 5800
CONFIDENTIAL
FM HONG KONG
TO DESKBY 06140OZ FCO
TELNO 1844
OF 061204Z DECEMBER
INFO DESKBY 06130OZ PARIS
HuB 091/3 нив
L6 DEL 1993
INFO IMMEDIATE UKREP JLG HONG KONG, PEKING
INFO ROUTINE UKMIS GENEVA
+86
UKDEL OECD Telno 69: OECD/Hong Kong
Summary
TOP COPY Q DIST?
1. We propose to reactivate our application for observer status on the OECD Trade Committee, before the 9 December OECD Council
meeting.
Detail
2. I was grateful for the helpful advice in TUR. The Chinese request for consultation has put us in a difficult position. If we relaunch our application now, the Chinese will no doubt do their best to sabotage it, damaging the the credibility of Hong Kong's commercial autonomy if they succeed. If we do not relaunch it, our credibility will, as TUR says, suffer anyway. Moreover, neither course seems offer a cast-iron guarantee of achieving observer status.
3. We had initially hoped that it might be possible to leave our application on the table, for reactivation once we had secured a Chinese green light. This would have given us time to try to convince the Chinese that any reservations they might have were entirely without foundation.
to
4. But at best, this would take several months. There would be no guarantee of success, particularly in the current atmosphere over Hong Kong's political development. In any case, I accept that to make the attempt would be pointless if our position meanwhile became unsustainable in the OECD. Furthermore, although we have in the past sometimes acceded to unreasonable Chinese requests for consultation on issues (such as CT9) where this has been a prerequisite for moving forward, we have never before agreed to a request for consultation under the IRO guidelines where there was no question of creating new IROs. To do so this time would set a
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