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Mr Male
Mr Cortazzi
HONG KONG: PLANNING PAPER
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По
cartazzi
75
12/va
1. O'Keeffe ~ 1236
(See Pus's minute.
Subsequent pps/
Ка
12/vii
1. I submit a copy of the new version of the Planning Paper in the form in which it emerged from the discussions with Sir Denys
Roberts last week. As the PUS is at present away from the office, I understand that Mr Cortazzi wishes to send this to the
Governor and I attach a draft covering letter. I recommend that
this should not seek to reply directly to the Governor's letter of 1 June to me complaining about the original Planning Paper; or indeed to his letter of 22 May to Mr Cortazzi. The object, I suggest, should be to keep the covering letter short and sweet and to allow the new version of the Planning Paper to speak for
itself.
2. For the purposes of the record and for the benefit of the PUS when he returns, I think it would be helpful to summarise the changes of substance between the new version and the original Planning Paper. (I also attach a copy of the Hong Kong redraft which we used where possible as the basis of our work last week.)
The British Interest (Section I)
3.
Here we have deleted all explicit references (e.g. in paragraph 3) to our ultimate aim of disengagement. This was a Hong Kong suggestion which we accepted because inclusion might give rise to the misunderstanding that this would be our aim in the mid-1980s. As the Paper makes clear elsewhere (notably in Annex B), we cannot at present decide what our negotiating aim
should be then.
The Interests of the Hong Kong Population (Section II)
4. We have included a section on this (paragraphs 6-8) on Hong Kong's suggestion. We were not prepared to accept that this was the paramount consideration; but it is an important one which we believe it right to include, not least because reference to it illuminates the contingent immigration problem which is a key issue.
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