TNAG-0781-FCO40-985-Involvement-of-Hong-Kong-in-air-services-agreements-1978 — Page 112

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If the Chinese do accept the proposal that their

I flights should be treated as scheduled services

This would be a suitable lead in to the question of the ASA and the

Chinese conditions. We agree that our first bid in the attempt to

satisfy the political conditions should be a statement on the lines

of para 3 of your Tel 663. If the Chinese regard this as insufficient

you might say that we find it disappointing that the Chinese continue

to adopt such an inflexible attitude which contrasts unfavourably with the

helpful and constructive attitude we have all along taken towards Chinese requests for (air services between the PRC and Hong Kong. Your final offer should be to add a sentence to the proposed statement along the lines of the last sentence of our Tel 599 of 6 October quote the

existing services of the regional route between Hong Kong and Taiwan,

non-governmental however, are operated by private airlines under/an agreement between the airlines concerned unquote.

flights.

4

In view of Hong Kong's reservations about the final fall-back

position in para 5 of your Tel 663, which DoT share, we are not prepared

to go this far.

Sung/Craddiela

FFY) want to add ref. to Sung / Cradduela

5. We agree with the proposals in para 6 of Tel 663 for dealing with the

other Chinese conditions which we would not in any event expect the

Chinese to press.

6.

Whilst we would settle for signature of an ASA in its present draft

form in preference to no ASA at all, we would nonetheless want you to explore

to the fullest the possibility of getting the ASA amended to make it of

more value. We were prepared to settle in 1973 for the best we could get

them, which best we acknowledged was some way short of what we would have