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number of journalists here and there is obviously an overall interest in issues involving Hong Kong being accurately reported in the UK press. A visit to Far East Section of Research Department would also be useful.
3
On briefing elsewhere, you are best placed to judge the priorities. Generally, Richard should not have much to do with trade as such but it would be worth his meeting with those in the Department of Trade concerned with air services and the remote possibility of a maritime agreement. I also hope that he can meet Home Office officials involved with Vietnamese refugees and the British Council for Aid to Refugees.
4.
We agree that a visit to Geneva, to call on the Mission and UNHCR, would be very useful. I mentioned this in passing yesterday to Sasha Casella of UNHCR who is here on a visit: he said that he would greatly look forward to meeting Richard.
5.
We agree that an informal visit to the Chinese Embassy would be useful but would prefer this to be done in a way which does not carry any implication that it should be a standard courtesy for new appointees to the Political Adviser's Office to make their number with the Chinese Embassy. The best solution from our point of view would be an informal lunch arranged for other reasons by someone in FED.
6.
I think that at least a full day should be allowed for the Hong Kong Government Office. Lack of time meant that I missed out on this before I came here and I still feel a little bit uncertain about how contacts work between the Office and FCO and other Government departments. If possible, I think it might be useful for Richard to call on the Office for half a day at the start of his briefing and to go back towards the end since a number of points are likely to come up which will make it easier for him to ask the right questions after the bulk of his briefing.
7.
A final point occurs to me on language training. It would be sensible for Richard to call on Kevin McMahon who recently returned to the Ministry of Defence (to be in charge of their language training) after being Commandant of the Language School at Lyemun. It would probably be best to call on him before seeing the DSLC.
Yurs are,
ain
(I C Orr)
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