in the first place we should do our best to maintain this self-election principle, and Mr. Combs drew atten- tion to the series of fall-back positions which had been elaborated by the Hong Kong Government in January. A number of other proposals were discussed, such as counter action by ourselves by removing certain products from our own offer; or that we might press for a whole group of countries to be excluded such as Taiwan and South Korea--if Hong Kong were excluded. It was agreed that this latter was hardly a practical pro- position, and that we would have to look at the position again when we saw the general attitude of donor coun- tries towards the inclusion of Hong Kong.
8. The Chairman suggested that a paper should go forward to Ministers on the lines of the discussion probably sometime in the week beginning 8 September.
9. Mr. Combs has since suggested that we in the F.C.o. might have bilateral discussions with Mr. Goldsmith about Hong Kong's position. I suggest that Mr. Carter and I might discuss this when we have the full PCO minutes and consider the possibility of bringing in someone from the Hong Kong Government.
(R. G. Britten)
5 September, 1969
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