TNAG-1151-FCO40-1431-Relations-between-Hong-Kong-and-the-United-Nations-1983 — Page 16

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CONFIDI.1.1

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3 By the time the Committee of 24's report was discussed in Plenary, the then Government had decided that, if the General Assembly adopted the Committee's recommendation, the United Kingdom would cease to transmit information on Hong Kong Article 73(e). The reasoning was as follows. If the United Kingdom were to continue to transmit information, the United Nations Secretariat would so report. This would almost certainly have led to an annual confrontation over Hong Kong in the Committee of 24 and perhaps also in the General Assembly. Against the background of the agreement to raise the status of the missions in Peking and London to Embassies, the United Kingdom was anxious to avoid a public dispute with the Chinese over Hong Kong (hence the decision to refrain from participating in the discussion in the Plenary Meeting of the General Assembly). The Government also took the view that to invite this kind of confrontation each year at the United Nations would have damaging consequences in the long term.

6 Nevertheless, it was the view of our Legal Advisers that, if the General Assembly approved the Committee of 24's report, it could be assumed that the General Assembly also considered that Article 73(e) of the Charter was no longer applicable to Hong Kong. In these circumstances, and particularly if the Government were to decide to cease transmitting information on Hong Kong under that Article, it would be necessary to safeguard our legal position. A letter, dated December 1972, was therefore sent from the Permanent Representative of the United Kingdom to the United Nations Secretary- General putting on record that the United Kingdom had decided to discontinue transmitting information on Hong Kong because no useful purpose would be served by continuing such transmission and not because the United Kingdom regarded the General Assembly's action as altering the status of Hong Kong or terminating the operation of Article 73(e). A copy of the letter of December 1972

is enclosed..

attached 6 64)

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An annual slanging match at the United Nations General Assembly with China (when Peking might have felt obliged to posture for the Third World decolonisation lobby and we should have been strongly outnumbered) would have done much to undermine confidence in the Territory. In the circumstances we avoided this without prejudicing our legal position.

Your ere

Jon Hins

(J E Holmes) Private Secretary

A J Coles Esq

10 Downing Street

CONFIDENTIAL