TNAG-1310-FCO40-1667-Future-of-Hong-Kong-1984 — Page 149

SECRET

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- 4 MAY 1984

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Private Secretary

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4/5 FROM: RD CLIFT,

DATE: 3 May 1984

cc: PS/Mr Luce PS/PUS

Discussed will ite Secretary of State fade

FUTURE OF HONG KONG: VIEWS OF GOVERNOR

Sir P Cradock Dr Wilson

FED

3/5-

HKD

1. The Governor telephoned on the secure line this morning. The following main points emerged:

(a)

(b)

(c)

(d)

2.

Draft agreement. He would be grateful for an indication of Ministers' views by the morning of 4 May. He will then send detailed comments on the draft. We shall telegraph instructions for a text to be circulated to EXCO on Saturday.

Nationality. We shall receive tomorrow a telegram from the Governor giving his views on how we take nationality forward in the text of an agreement and also on the problem of immigration undertakings. It will include views on the groups of civil servants likely to be at greatest risk with some estimate of numbers.

Issues outstanding from Item 1. On nationality and other outstanding issues, the Governor's view is that we should not be in a hurry to propose compromise solutions. He emphasised the suspicions among Unofficials about our readiness to weaken on such issues.

Acceptability. The Governor expressed reservations about the proposition that we should be should more actively soliciting comments on the Secretary of State's statement now, eg through District Boards and other bodies. He said that the mood in Hong Kong such that if we did this at present we would get the flat verdict that the package outlined was unacceptable as a whole. He believes that it will be necessary to take further steps, perhaps fairly soon, to expand on our ideas in public. He will be letting us have further thoughts on this.

The Secretary of State may wish to touch on (b), (c) and (d) at his meeting at 2.00 pm. On nationality and other outstanding issues, there is certainly a case for our letting EXCO know soon that we do not believe we can get anywhere by sticking to our original proposal. But I recommend that we wait for the Governor's telegram before taking a decision on this.

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