204
CONFIDENTIAL
HKK 121/616/1
Flag A
7537
Mr Cortezzi
HONG KONG AND THE MFA
1.
t
ou Taken
In paragraph 4 of his letter of 3 September, the Governor of Hong Kong asked that we should respect the confidence in which Mr Tran Van Tanh, the Commission's negotiator on textile matters, had told the Governor of the Commission's proposals for the EEC mandate for the bilateral negotiations with Hong Kong. When he called on you on 26 September, the Governor protested that we had not respected this confidence. He had heard from the Hong Kong representative in Brussels that everyone in the Commission seemed to be aware of the contents of the Governor's letter.
2. It is silly to suggest that we in the Office could take any effective action on the Governor's letter without the Commission coming to know that he had written it. No-one, either in the FCO or in our delegation in Brussels, revealed the contents of the letter to the Commission. Tran called at the FCO on 9 September when he saw Mr Duffy from my Department, together with Mr Jenkins, Mr Broomfield and Mir Stern from EID(E). Tran said straight off that he knew that the Governor proposed to write to the Office although he, Tran, had tried to persuade him not to. When we tried to persuade Tran of the fact that Hong Kong was being treated unduly harshly, he, of course, must have realized that the Governor had passed the Commission's proposals to us and it is difficult to imagine what else officials here could have done. The Governor asked us to help the Hong Kong cause and we could not have done this without revealing that we knew that Hong Kong had some reason to worry. If there was any betrayal of the Governor's confidence it was simply because we were doing what he asked us to do.
3. I attach a draft letter to Sir Murray MacLehose in case you wish to set the record straight with him. However, you are aware of my feelings that the Governor's complaint was simply a manifestation of his normal negotiating technique and that a complaint on our part would serve no useful purpose.
29 September 1977
Cc:
Mr Fretwell
Mr Jenkins (EID)(E)
CONFIDENTIAL
J A B Stewart
Hong Kong & General Dept
Ketten
as amended to conue,
Ae
30/ix
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