TNAG-0436-FCO40-501-Relations-between-Hong-Kong-and-international-organisations-1973 — Page 144

CONFIDENTIAL

M

United Kingdom Mission 37-39 rue de Vermont 1202 Geneva

Telex 22956

Telegrams Prodrome Geneva

Telephone 34 38 00 33 23 85

W N Wenban-Smith Esq

UN Dept

FCO

(FED)

Khin Paris Avis sund

what

2

351,

Your reference

UN 19/8

Our reference

Date

29 January 1974

10

Dear Nigel. Nigel, EXECUTI

WHO EXECUTIVE BOARD: HONG KONG

1. I enclose a copy of Executive Board document EB 53/32 of 23 January, the report to the Board by its Standing Committee on Non-Governmental Organisations, on which there was no UK member. This includes a brief statement by the Chinese member of the Executive Board, Dr Chen Ilai-feng, that Hong Kong should not have been listed as a country in the documentation submitted to the Committee. This remark, we learned, was occasioned by the application for N.G.0 status from the International Union of Biological Sciences, a"confidential" document seen only by members of the Standing Committee and, of course, not within Secretariat responsibility. Although it was not possible to obtain a copy of the offending document, it seemed likely from the evidence available that this classified Hong Kong as a "country", as to which we too would have reservations.

2. No reference to this statement was made when the Board discussed the report, Dr Chen confining his remarks to a repetition of his attack on Taiwan's continued representation on Non-Governmental

The enclosed transcript Organisations in official relations with WHO. of Dr Chen's statement about Hong Kong in the Committee, however,

without making any confirms that this was made in a low key

Bearing in mind our territorial claim and purely for the record. wish to maintain a low profile on this issue, and since the UK member would have had to take the initiative in raising orally in the Board a statement not in itself objectionable, we allowed this to pass without comment.

}

Bves.

david

Jus

Munte B'Aran. Mich

OM O'Brien

1

cc:(with encs)

UKMIS New York

TJ George Esq, HONG KONG

Mr Pearson, Hong Kong Delegation,

Geneva

CONFIDENTIAL

A