No!
A
CONFIDENTIAL
BOARD OF TRADE.
(34)
1 Victoria Street,
London, 8.W.1.
11th December, 1969.
Thank you for your letter of December 3 about Hong Kong representation in Geneva.
2.
Your suggestions for additional paragraphs to the guidance paper on "Hong Kong's External Commercial Relations" were timely. aly. I gather that exchanges are still going on with the Governer af Hong Kong about the possibility of amendments to the document sent to you by Carter. Whether it will be possible to have your suggestions adopted is uncertain but at least they can be taken into account before anything final is decided.
3. The general question of Hong Kong's discretion to speak at international meetings in her o interests (even where these do not coincide with our own views) has already been considered. There was an exchange of telegrams with the Governor of Hong Kong in September about this, copies of which were not unfortunately sent to you at the time but which I now enclose. As Hong Kong is a separate signatory of the Cotton Textiles Arrangement there is a better case for allowing Hong Kong to speak for herself at the Cotton Textiles Committee than in other international fora. But even there, and even where there are genuine differences of view, we doubt if it is really in Hong Kong's interests for her to take any public line which might embarrass the U.K. and we would hope and expect that consultation on the spot could minimise the risk that this night happen.
of
On the point you mentioned at the beginning of your letter (the one dealt with in para.7 of the enclosure to my minute ofį November 27 to Roderick Abbott) I now hope that serious difficulty will not arise. Our recent discussions with Wellenstein and Ernst made it clear that the roll-in of restraints on cotton and non-cotte would be unacceptable to the E.E.C.; and Roderick Abbott's letter t me of the 24th of November shows that it would be equally unacceptałg to the Japanese. The main reason why the Hong Kongers would like any further discussion of restraints on non-cotton textiles to take place in the G.A.T.T. Cotton Textiles Committee is to facilitate the possibility of roll-in should restraints on non-cotton textiles ever receive qualified sanction by the G.A.T.T. As I now see it, no
certainly major country would be in sympathy with the roll-in idea - we would not - and we would hope, after discussion with David Jordan and Derek Jones, to persuade them that there would be no advantage in expressing their views publicly at the forthcoming meeting.
5.
It is also possible that we might not see eye to eye with Hong Kong over Article 2 of the C.T.A., but there again we would hep to straighten out any differences of views in discussion with you E and our Hong Kong colleagues.
His Excellency Bir Eugene Melville, (R. Goldmith)
K.C.M.G.,
United Kingdom Mission, 37-39 rue de Vermont, Geneva.
c.c. Mr. Whitehead (F.C.O.) Fr. Stewart (P.C.O,) Ir. Dunnett CRE.1) CONFIDENTIAL
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