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what a debacle there had been in the case of the Air Agreement. He was not one who believed that the Chinese stick to Agreements, come what may. If it suited them, they cheerfully overturned them. If any Maritime Agreement was to be signed, it was essential that proper provision was made for safe- guarding Hong Kong interests and crews. The possibility of a half-way house in the form of a Sino-British Maritime Commission meeting alternately in Peking and London,
say at annual intervals, was also discussed as a means of keeping channels of communication open and providing a natural opportunity to deal with current problems.
Sir Murray took the point but stressed the same reservations as he had towards a full-scale Maritime Agreement.
(f) The GCBS Annual Dinner on November 5th when Sir Murray will
be the Guest of Honour. The President said that, apart from speaking about U.K. shipping developments generally, he proposed to concentrate on the Far East, to say that it was an area we ignored at our peril, to refer to the growth of Hong Kong shipping and the importance of U.K. shipping co-operating fully with Hong Kong owners with whom they had so much in common. Sir Murray commented that this was what he had been proposing to say! No doubt, however, between them, he and the President could share out the spoils. The President said he imagined Sir Murray would wish to speak on a wider canvass than he could. It was left that we would send the first draft of the President's speech to Sir Murray by, say, the end of September. He concluded by saying how glad he was to be coming.
(g)
Vietnamese Refugees. The President referred to the unfair penalties which British shipowners could incur if their Masters picked up refugees in accordance with their statutory obligations, e.g. Sibonga. H.E. said he fully appreciated this but, taking the Sibonga as a case in question, he had had a point to make to the U.K. Government and he was glad in the end that they had taken it and the refugees. Now the problem was what was going to happen when the current Geneva quota ran out. He was sympathetic to the case of British shipowners but his primary concern must be with the appalling problems of refugees in Hong Kong generally. The Colony was still receiving the Vietnamese boat people at the rate of several hundred per week.
There was then discussion of the Air Agreement and the current difficulties on which the President has reported separately.
1st September, 1980.
Copied to:
President
Mr. David Ropner
Mr. Farthing,
Mr. Davy
FSP Division, GCBS
b.c. R.J. Brown, Esq.
W.P. Shovelton
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