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the Agreement. We could accept this on the understanding that HK was included under the Government of the UK. Secondly, the Chinese proposed that paragraph 3 of Article 2 should be rephrased to read
'for crew members of third countries working on board vessels
of one contracting party, the identity documents shall be the identity documents issued by the competent authorities of such countries acceptable to the other contracting party.'
Our counter-suggestion was to try to cover the position of seamen with HK identity documents by accepting the Chinese proposal with
the insertion of the words 'or territories' after 'third countries'
and 'such countries'.
The HK issue also arises in relation to most of the Articles which
were not reached in the earlier negotiations.
Discrimination :
5. The second major issue raised by Chinese proposals during the earlier negotiations concerns the ability of one party to derogate from the provisions of the agreement in respect of vessels flying the flag of, or seamen holding identity documents from, countries of which it does not approve. This issue arose in relation to Articles 2,3 and 7.
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6. The Chinese proposed that the words 'if the competent authorities of the other contracting party do not object' should be added to Article 2. The effect of this would be to exclude vessels flying flags of countries of which the Chinese disapprove. Most other agreements give the parties this right but the German one does not. We should therefore seek what the Germans have secured especially because if HK were excluded failure to secure this would in theory enable the Chinese to discriminate against HK, which would then be a third country flag.
7.
The Chinese proposed a re-draft of Article 3 as follows:
1) Each contracting party shall refrain from taking any
action which would constitute flag discrimination against vessels of the other party.
2) Each contracting party shall refrain from taking any
action which would constitute flag discrimination against vessels flying the national flag of third countries acceptable to both contracting parties, operated by the
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