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CONFIDENTIAL
DRAFT BRIEF B
Type 1 +
To:-
FROM
Telephone No. Ext.
Department
LARKS WITH THE GOVERNOR OF LHO 20
UK/CHINA AIR SERVICES AGREEMENT
~BRIEF NO
1. An agreement regulating air services on the
trunk route between Britain and China was initialled
in Peking on 13 June. During the negotiations which
preceded the initialling the Chinese did not raise
any of the several difficult points relating to
Hong Kong or services between Hong Kong and
Taiwan which we feared they might, herve.
We had
no reason to suppose that the initialling would
not be followed by formal signature as soon as
the necessary preparation of the texts was
complete. We were in favour of rapid signature
so as to enable BOAC to introduce its first direct
flights from London to China with the change over
to through the winter time table on 1 November 1973.
2.
Contrary to our expectations the Chinese did
proceed to
not respond to our pressure to [early signature. At first they gave the impression that the difficulties
were purely administrative, but on 18 August the
Head of Western European Department at the MFA
gave HM Ambassador the first informal advance
warning that the Chinese were considering raising
a substantive point, namely a demand to "get rid
of" the official si on aircraft coming from
signos
Taiwan to Hong Kong.
Mr Wang drew a clear
CONFIDENTIAL
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