TNAG-0989-FCO40-1208-Claims-to-property-in-People-s-Republic-of-China-owned-by-UK-1980 — Page 22

CONFIDENTIAL# 2

From.. Registrar General

Ref....(6

Tel. No.

..

RG 103/24

5-95373

MEMO

To Assistant Political Adviser

о

-

URGENT BY HAND

Date

22nd October 1980.

Your Ref...in. SCR 2/5321/52

·

dated

20.10.80

Draft Foreign Compensation (People's Republic

of China) (Registration) Order 1980

With reference to your memo of 20.10.80 regarding the above,

I have the following comments on the draft Order :-

(1) Clause 2, page 2, definition of "Debt" - I am not clear as

to why part (c) of the definition of "Bond" excludes a bond denominated in a currency other than a Chinese currency. I understand that many of the bonds issued pre-war by the Chinese authorities were denominated in foreign currencies to make them more acceptable in overseas securities markets. I cannot see any good reason why the Chinese authorities should regard themselves as not being equally liable in respect of such bonds.

(2) Clause 5, page 4 -

(i) It appears that no form of Application is to be

specified (although it also appears from clause 6(1) that a form of notification of an application will be specified). While this is understandable in view of the widely varying natures of the claims to be expected and the consequent difficulties in designing a sufficiently comprehensive form, I fear that this situation may result in the Commission receiving some rather strange documents. This Department has con- siderable experience of petitions from the public in respect of land matters and, formerly, questions in connexion with births, deaths and marriage documentation and some of these documents can be of quite daunting length and complexity. A specified application form would probably tend to bring some order and displine into the claims.

(ii) I note that clause 5(1)(a) requires information as to, inter alia, "the value" of the property as at the date of deprivation. My initial reaction was that it might be desirable to specify how the value should be denominated. My experience from dealing with the files of companies which came here from Shanghai in 1949 suggests that there was a considerable amount of variation in the unit of value used in Shanghai e.g. I still come across the occasional Shanghai company whose paid-up capital is expressed in gold taels.

1..... 2

G.F. 73C

CONFIDENTIAL ##