A E Donald Esq
Political Adviser's Office Government Secretariat HONG KONG
CONFIDENTIAL
Dzla
by in
233-4381
Month
28 July, 1977
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2/8
THE PRIME MINISTER OF WESTERN SAMOA'S TRANSIT STOP IN HONG KONG
1. Thank you for your letter CR2/5701/77 of 22 July about the Frime Minister of Western Samoa's stop-over in llong Kong between 4 and 6 June. I am giving a copy of your letter to Martin Hime in SWPD.
2.
There was one point in your letter which particularly attracted my attention. This was the statement that NCNA representatives in Hong Kong had commented favourably to the Western Samoan delegation on the good conference facilities available in Hong Kong and suggested that Hong Kong would be a suitable location for Facific conferences (paragraph 3 of your letter). we in HKGD always feel a little uneasy when ideas or proposals are advanced for conferences in Hong Kong. Leaving aside those cases where the vexed question of visas for Soviet bloc nationals may arise, eg the would-be Ninth World Baptist Youth Conference (now to be held in Manila), we invariably begin to worry about what the Chinese reaction might be if such and such conference were to be held in Hong Kong. The sort of questions we find ourselves asking are the following. Is a particular conference likely to be of interest to the Chinese, in which event should they or should they not be invited to participate? Is any other country with which the Chinese do not enjoy satisfactory relations going to be represented at a conference and, if so, are the Chinese going to mind? Is Hong Kong going to appear to be improving its "status" in the eyes of others by hosting a conference and, if so, how are the Chinese going to react? Given the large number of conferences, meetings, seminars and so on that have been held in Hong Kong over the years
in my time the Commonwealth Finance Ministers' Meeting last year is the biggest one that springs to mind it may be that by now we should have stopped worrying so much about the "Chinese dimension" to conference- making in Hong Kong. Nevertheless, encouraged, if necessary, by our colleagues in FED, we have continued to weigh up any suggestion of a conference in Hong Kong with very close regard to the Peking angle.
3. Subject to your further views, it seems to me that in the light of what the NCNA representatives chose to say to the Western Samoans about holding conferences in Hong Kong we need not perhaps be quite so cautious in our attitude as we have been in the past. Indeed, it sounds almost as though we might risk irritating the Chinese (or, at least, your NCNA contacts) if we were to start thinking of possible snags about holding a certain conference in Hong Kong. There will clearly remain the problem
/of
CONFIDENTIAL
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