which either we or the Chinese are a party on which they could be based.
5. Third, we have consistently and successfully resisted any suggestion of a supranational role for the IAEA in Nuclear Safety either under Nuclear Safety Conventions sponsored by the Agency, or under its Nuclear Safety Standards. An appeal to the Board to arbitrate would go far to conceding just such a role.
6.
Finally, the rights which Hong Kong seeks from China as set out in paragraph 3 of Telno.346 go beyond anything known to me in international practice. Indeed, they go beyond the
beyond the proposals which have already been refused by some States with nuclear power programmes to their neighbours. (eg France and Luxembourg, Sweden and Denmark). Certainly we should not be prepared to concede such rights to our neighbours, and have steadfastly
steadfastly refused to, eg Iceland, Ireland, Norway, any droit de regard over our nuclear operations. The conclusion would seem to be not that Hong Kong's objectives are wrong or undesirable, but that the case for them should rest on the specific needs of Hong Kong rather than international principle.
7. Subject, therefore, to the views of others, my advice would be
against threatening the Chinese with raising the disagreement between them and Hong Kong in the Board. It is not a threat which we could carry through without sacrificing general policy points which are important to us. The Chinese would probably also calculate that they would have little trouble resisting such an initiative.
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8. I am sending copies of this letter to Rod Bunton in HKD, Martin Bourke in ESED, Chris Willby in NII, and to Bill Dickson in Vienna as well as to Helen Haddon and Brian Freeman here.
PH AGRELL
ATOMIC ENERGY DIVISION
[ HONGKONG ]
dti
the department for Enterprise
Recycled Pap