TNAG-0747-FCO40-951-Visits-of-Foreign-and-Commonwealth-officials-to-Hong-Kong-1978 — Page 196

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VISIT TO HONG KONG.

1.

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Reference

NB.

COMPT PASAR 1973 Copy to you hearay

CONFIPED

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On arrival in Hong Kong I found that the programme originally sent to me by the Protocol Office had been entirely rewritten, apparently by the Governor himself. I attach copies of the original and final versions for comparison. On the whole, I found the revised version a great improvement: although it left me very little free time, it was a better balance of outside visits and indoor discussions and briefings. It included visits to some of the Gove mor's pet projects - the new towns, the public works department, the country parks - and thus had an element of brain washing in it. It had also clearly been down-graded only one of the six calls on departmental Secretaries survived the revision - but this was perhaps no bad thing since I was more interested in seeing how the engine room worked than in making polite conversation on the bridge. was certainly able to learn alot about Hong Kong and feel that overall the visit was very worthwhile.

2. I am minuting separately on the police, textiles, the budget, my call on Mr March at the BTC and the position of the Governor. This minute deals with the other points raised in my brief (copy attached for reference).

POLITICAL ADVISER

3. I gently reminded Dr Wilson that HKGD are responsible for all aspects of Hong Kong's external relations, including relations with China. He expressed some surprise at this and said that he had been operating under a brief originally given to his predecessor, but which nobody had ever contradicted, under which Hong Kong-Chinese relations was the responsibility of FED. He would welcome a letter agreed by the Heads of the two Departments setting out the division of responsibilities.

4.

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Dr Wilson saw no great problem over his preparing personalisty notes on unofficial members of ExCo and LegCo etc. But if we wanted him to do this, we should channel our request through the Govem or.

5. Dr Wilson also asked if we could let him have a note setting out the time constraints under which we operated in dealing with PQs: several people in the Hong Kong administration had complained to him about the shortness of the notice they were given to prepare replies. There was obviously a feeling that we imposed very short deadlines on Hong Kong while leaving ourselves ample time at our end. (Since drafting this, I have seen our Telno 174 of 2 March to Hong Kong, in which we gave them only eight hours to provide replies to two questions one of which was not due for reply until five days affer our deadline and the other three days it was probably this that sparked the complaint

/ILO CONVENTIONS

CODE 18-77

CONFIDENTIAL

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