TNAG-1491-FCO40-2049-Future-of-Hong-Kong-General-Agreement-on-Tariffs-and-Trade-(-1986 — Page 209

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From: JA Shepherd, ECD(E)

7 January 1986

CC: FED

N. 87

Hong Kong Department

CHINA AND THE GATT

In the light of your discussions with Hong Kong Department I agreed to speak on the telephone to Mr Lane about his letter to me of 11 November.

1.

2. I told Mr Lane that we had enough evidence of Australian frankness with the Chinese to make it impossible for us to agree that we should brief the Australians on our attitude towards Chinese membership of the GATT. He accepted this, particularly in the light of the current delicate state of discussions over Hong Kong's own status in the GATT.

3.

We agreed that it would be helpful if the Americans were to talk to the Australians. Another way in which the message might be passed on to the Australians is through the OECD Trade Committee which may discuss Chinese membership of the GATT at some meeting in the near future. So long as the OECD Secretariat produced the right sort of paper which we could endorse, we would not need to expose any surface. Mr Lane agreed that in such a discussion the right tactic would be for us to speak late and preferably after the Americans. I suggested that to cover ourselves against feedback even from such a discussion we would do well to lay stress on the unhelpful precedent Chinese membership would create for a Soviet application (a point the Chinese themselves might appreciate) rather than on the problems which would arise from Chinese membership as such.

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REGISTRY

-9 JAN 1986

DES! OFFICER.

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احسسهل

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