TNAG-1559-FCO40-2123-Future-of-Hong-Kong-nationality-and-passports-Hong-Kong-(Br-1986 — Page 33

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RECEIVERTIR

30 JAN 1986

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INDEX

DA

FROM

202

Thorold Masefield

Far Eastern Department

DATE

я Робе

ArA

28 January 1986

Mr Galsworthy

HKD

HONG KONG : NATIONALITY

CC.:

Dr Wilson

1.

At the Hong Kong Association's regular lunch today I was one of the guests along with Mr Albert Lam, Deputy Commissioner for Hong Kong. At the point in the meal when

a brief word of welcome or toast would have occurred, Mr Swire indeed said a few words of welcome to the guests and then led a discussion on current feeling in Hong Kong on the nationality issue. The context was his claim that people in Hong Kong were all steamed up on the issue, as had been apparent during Mr Renton's recent visit, and so still likely to wish to get at me when I am in Hong Kong in 3 weeks time.

2. Mr Swire summarised Hong Kong feeling as follows : Umelco would have no function if they were not able to raise an issue like nationality and succeed in pressing their rep- resentations; particularly after Ji Peng Fei's visit and refusal to meet Umelco, that body must be seen to have a role; once the Governor and all the officials had also backed the Umelco request questions of "face" were involved; moreover all the potential objections had been answered e.g. that Hong Kong Chinese would want similar concessions, or that the authorities in Peking would object. Mr Swire added, as a concession, that he did not go along with the wide-spread view that Britain was abandoning Hong Kong in the search for better relations with Peking especially over trade.

3.

When I could get a chance to comment, and after disclaiming responsibility for, and knowledge of, the subject I said that the last allegation was complete nonsense. If there were to be such a policy the search for the alleged improvement in relations with China would have been led by FED, and I knew that this was not the case. On the issue of "face", I suggested that those in Hong Kong pressing this case might have taken more care either to prepare the ground or to assess the chances of success realistically before allowing "face" to become involved. also said that as an outsider I could not quite understand why the issue had become so topical all of a sudden and was so hotly argued (the only answer I got was that it was only recently that the small print of what was involved in the Agreement had emerged).

I

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