Reference..
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CONFIDENTIAL
Mr. Kinnear (Hong Kong Department)
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Draft Telegram to Hong Kong
I have taken the liberty of expanding your draft telegram. I hope the amendments I have made are self-explanatory.
2.
Once you have the approval of Mr. Wilford to the draft telegram, you will wish to send it to Board of Trade and MINTECH for their early comments. In doing so, I think you will also need to make sure that you have on your files an agreed version of the draft submission to Ministers. As I remember events, Mr. Gregory had made certain suggestions for amending the draft submission which were countered on behalf of Hong Kong Department, in a letter from Mr. Heath, but Mr. Gregory has not signified that he accepts our views. Also we will need, in the light of the comments made by Mr. Hughes to me, to show that we have given consideration to the question of the timing of any Hong Kong approach to the Americans and the possibility that this will be a complicating factor for our own negotiations with E.E.C. on Hong Kong's behalf.
3. The version of the draft despatch enclosed with your minute of 17 August to Mr. Edwards does not fully reflect the position we have reached.
✔ Paragraph 1 should read "any matters".
✔
Paragraph 4 Delete (LTA).
-
Paragraph 5, line 1 - Delete "also".
✔ Paragraph 6(i) - "with" should read "wish".
last line - Delete "usually".
?
After paragraph 7 insert new paragraph 8:
"Should problems of overseas trade relations arise in commodities other than textiles, the Hong Kong Government will be free to follow the same general policies, mutatis mutandis, as are proposed for textiles in this despatch."
Existing paragraph 9
"disassociate" has been misspelt. You will no doubt wish to amend the draft despatch before sending a revised version with the draft telegram to the Whitehall Departments.
CONFIDE
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