TNAG-0242-FCO40-278-Conduct-of-Hong-Kong-commercial-relations-1970 — Page 25

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MR LAK CRET

C

I have seen a copy of Hir Carey's minute to you about United Kingdom relations with Hong Kong on textiles. I have a great deal of sympathy with Mr Ceroy's approach; it is really nonsense to go on treating Hong Kong in trade matters as though she were not an independent country when (as a Hong Kong spokesman pointed out at a dinner which I attended last night) liong Kong is the twenty-fourth largest trading nation in the world.

2 However, I suspect that we cannot in practice follow Mr Carey' line of thought unless we are willing to accept two further consequences, namely

3

(a)

(b)

that we could not limit Hong Kong's freedom of action to textilec; she would have to be free to deal similarly with other (though not necessarily all) aspects of her international commercial relations, and

we should have to treat Hong Kong as though she were an equal member of the GATT (though even if we did so she would remain in a weaker position than independent members because she could not, in the event of aisagree- ment, bring our conduct before the contracting parties).

No doubt there are plenty of other problems which you will need to look into in considering Mr Carey's suggestion and some of them may prove intractable. But I hope that we can tackle the subject with sympathy and determination.

се

Mr Sanders

Mr Dunnett (or)

Mr Vinter)

Mr Carey)

Yir Wilford

Mr Gallagher

CRE2

CRE1

Min Tech

}: -

FCO

W. HUGHES Secretariat 9 June 1970