TNAG-1242-FCO40-1555-Future-of-Hong-Kong-1983 — Page 136

Sir I Sinclair

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FROM: R D CLIFT, HKD

DATE: 26 AUGUST 1983

cc: PS/PUS

Mr Giffard

Mr Thomson, FED

FUTURE OF HONG KONG: REAPPRAISAL OF STRATEGY

589

1. You will have received a copy of my submission of 24 August enclosing a Paper on Hong Kong. This was discussed with Mr Burrows before he went on leave.

2. As you will see Annex I of the Paper discusses a number of possible changes in Hong Kong's administrative arrangements on the assumption (unlikely) that we retained administrative control through a Governor responsible to London. Annex II goes a step further and examines ways in which Hong Kong's autonomy be might be preserved if both sovereignty and administration passed to China.

3. An important element in both sets of ideas is that of the maximum autonomy for the Hong Kong Government in both the domestic and international fields. This is covered particularly in Appendix E of Annex I and also in Appendix J which deals with Civil Aviation. In Annex II there are also references in paragraph 14 to Hong Kong negotiating its own commercial agreements internationally.

:

4. It seems to me that this an area of which we may need to do more thinking and on which Ministers may well ask questions. I should be very grateful to have your views on the extent to which might, in practical terms, get international acceptance for very extensive independent activity by Hong Kong in the international field, at any rate as regards commercial and economic relations. Would international law and the views of other countries in practice demand that Hong Kong be represented by, at any rate in a formal sense, either by the UK or China?

''territory'' with sovereignty vested elsewhere conclude international agreements?

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26 August 1983

SECRET

R D Clift

Hong Kong Department