TNAG-1243-FCO40-1557-Future-of-Hong-Kong-1983 — Page 63

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i. Ento

779

Him or.

United Kingdom Mission to the United Nations 845 Third Avenue New York NY 10022

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NOTEO

20/12

مى

عالم ملک

CO Hum Esq

Hong Kong Department

Foreign & commonwealth Office

Да

Der

Christopher,

Your reference

20%

Our reference

40/1

Date

HKK0401

RECEIVLU I REGIST

14 December 1983

子

for Takes

J

CHINA AND THE REGISTRATION OF INTERNATIONAL AGREEMENTS

(48)1.

Thank you for thinking to send me a further copy of your letter of 14 October. The original had not, I am glad to say, 604)gone astray. Rather, as I pointed out in my letter of 6 October,

it was necessary to steer my enquiry through a completely trustworthy route, and this meant allowing my (British) source enough time to pursue the enquiry without attracting undue attention.

It

2. I recently had the chance to talk to him again. transpires that there is no sign of any recent expression of Chinese views on the registration process under article 102 of the UN Charter. Similarly, there is no sign that the Chinese may be on the point of taking action themselves to register their own treaties. My source was in fact on a duty mission to China fairly recently and he had the impression at the time that it was bureaucratic problems (chiefly lack of qualified personnel) more than anything else which had precluded paying more attention to questions like treaty registration.

3. It is of course implicit in the above that the Chinese would not regard registration as adding any extra force to the binding nature of a treaty. Any other view would have serious implications for the validity of treaties entered into by the PRC in recent years. Conversely, if the Chinese were to make a point of registering a particular treaty, this would be a fairly dramatic move in their eyes.

I stress, of course, that these conclusions are speculation rather than established fact.

You,

г

F D Berman

c.c.

Mr AC Galsworthy, Peking Mr R P Margolis, Hong Hong

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