TNAG-0868-FCO40-1078-Air-services-between-China--Hong-Kong-and-the-UK-1979 — Page 234

Mr Murray

CONFIDENTIAL

Hkk 184/2

RECEIVED IN REC

15 MAY 1979

HESK BEFICER INBEX

No

UK/PRC AIR SERVICES AGREEMENT

PA

NO. 51

RE:

145

8225 Willing J15..

and P.A.

1. You asked for a short record of the points which were discussed with Mr Rogers in DOT this morning. You will recall that Mr Rogers expressed the hope that the discussion would be quite informal; we are therefore not sending a copy to the DOT.

Regional routes

2.

Mr Rogers said that an agreement on services between Hong Kong and points in China could be reached in a variety of ways, ranging from an annex to the full Air Services Agreement (ASA) to an informal practical arrangement without any written agreement. DOT had no objection if the arrangements for regional services were not incaporated in a legally binding document; a large number of our ASAs with other countries were not legally binding. You said that there would be no constitutional difficulties in principle as far as the FCO were concerned if the regional routes agreement was not formally linked to the ASA. You accepted that these routes should be negotiated by HMG (London) and not by the Hong Kong authorities alone.

Status of Hong Kong

3. You said that if the Chinese made a formal state- ment of their position on Hong Kong, Mr Rogers would need to take on the spot advice from the Embassy on whether a reply would be needed. But it was unlikely that the Chinese would make a statement which was sufficiently provocative to warrant a formal British response. It was, however, particularly important to keep a close eye on the language used by the Chinese about Hong Kong in any formal document; if we got it wrong, this could have far reaching implications for China/Hong Kong relations.

103

81415

11 May 1979

c.c.

Miss Brown Mr Morland

Mr Samuel, FED Mr McLaren, HK&GD

CONFIDENTIAL

G H Boyce Maritime, Aviation & Environment Dept