TNAG-0324-FCO40-360-Development-of-Kai-Tak-Airport-at-Hong-Kong-1972 — Page 48

2

MUT 4/50/1/1 52

Flag

Mur 4/501/15

Flag B

will $5)

Flag S

Mr Wilford

1.

Your minute of 29 January about equipment for Kai Tak

Airport.

2. In his telegram No851 of 5 November 1969 Sir H Norman- Walker said "I am now in the position of having to commit myself to specific equipment ... However it is I think possible

11

that I may thereby prejudice my application for a grant. In the reply (FCO telno.738 of 10 November 1969) he was told "You are right to think it possible that your application might be prejudiced if you decided to purchase other than British equipment. Hong Kong telegram No.870 of 14 November made it clear that the Hong Kong Government proposed to purchase the Selina equipment.

Although FCO telegram No. 738 of 10 November said that we were "proposing to submit the application for a grant to Ministers for a final decision in week beginning 17th November",

Flag B

3.

PKK 21 Flag

AKK 21/7

यान

Flags Flag Flag F

& F

I cannot trace that the matter was in fact submitted until March 1970. This was just before Mr Michael Stewart's visit to Hong Kong and, as you will remember, Lord Shepherd declined to issue the letter to the Treasury.

164. Last September there was a sharp exchange of telegrams

between ourselves and Hong Kong. Paragraph 4 of the Secretary 1/3 of State's Personal and Confidential letter to the Governor of *Hes

3 August (referred to in paragraph 2 of FCO telegram NO.608)

read as follows

"I know of course that one consequence of the transfor- mation of Hong Kong from a trading to a manufacturing centre has inevitably been an increase in the number of situations where there may be a clash between the interests of Hong Kong and the domestic interests of the United Kingdom. In such situations we would regard it as a particular responsibility to see that Her Majesty's Government took account of Hong Kong's interests and that they were always carefully weighed when decisions on policy have to be taken.

11

5. More recently we decided not to send a formal reply to Hong Kong about the application for a loan until we could say something about the grant of traffic rights at Hong Kong to KLM.

Unfortunately, as you know, it has not been possible to find a quid pro quo which the Dutch could offer us in exchange for landing rights for KLM at Hong Kong. In all the circum- stances I think we should let sleeping dogs lie and hope that we can do better if and when a decision is taken about the underground railway.

10 February 1971

Eɣarin

E O Laird

Hong Kong Department