TNAG-1122-FCO40-1397-Dependent-Territories-and-the-Universal-Postal-Union-(UPU)-1982 — Page 6

ET MON

CONFIDENTIAL

Foreign and Commonwealth Office London SW1A 2AH

Chancery PEKING

HKG 201/1

31

Telephone 01-

NO

TOUSTAY

75%8

Your reference

Our reference

Date 19 November 1982

SE (33

ASIAN PACIFIC POSTAL UNION (APPU)

HONG KONG ATTENDANCE: YOUR TELEGRAM NO.760

за

We are sorry that you were left somewhat in the dark over the full background to this.

1.

2.

(27)

Wellington telegram number 351 of 28 October was repeated Saving to you. I hope, therefore, that by the time you receive this you will already have seen it. But I enclose a copy in case it still has not arrived. This telegram is the report, albeit brief, of the October council meeting.

3. The 1975 precedent' refers to the arrangement reached then, which seemed to satisfy everyone involved. HMG, as a member of the Universal Postal Union, sought, and received, an invitation to attend the Congress as an observer. A Hong Kong representative attended as the UK observer, with the prior agreement of APPU. You will see from paragraph 3 of FCO telegram number 269 of 6 August to Wellington (repeated to you) that it was a former Director of APPU who suggested that we might this year follow the 1975 precedent. But it appears from Wellington telegram number 263 of 19 August that the Chinese object to this although not to attendance by 'an observer of the Hong Kong area'. We do not know whether the Chinese attended the 1975 Congress.

If they did, we wonder why there has been a change of attitude since then, and indeed why they have raised this objection when there are other examples of Hong Kong attending international organisations as part of the UK delegation or in its own right (e.g. ESCAP), apparently without objection from the Chinese. We should be

/grateful

CONFIDENTIAL