TNAG-1587-FCO40-2171-Future-of-Hong-Kong-British-Consulate-General-1986 — Page 46

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CONFIDENTIAL

EK 40/

RECEIVI

12 AUG 1986

VEON UFTUN INDEX

Sif Edward Youde GCMG MBE Governor and Commander-in-Chief HONG KONG

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Foreign and Commonwealth Office

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London SW1A 2AH

2 May 1986

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RECEIVED IN REGİOTMY

1 2 MAY 1986

DESK OFFICER

INDEX

PAA

a

REGISTRY Addon Taken

STAFFING OF THE CONSULATE-GENERAL IN HONG KONG

1. I have written a separate letter to you today about the staffing of the Joint Liaison Group in Hong Kong. While discussing the JLG, we took the opportunity to take a further look at the outline establishment for the Consulate-General in 1997, which the PUS attached to his letter of 7 November 1985.

2. Without going so far at this stage as to produce a new agreed list, we noted the following points:

a)

if, as mooted in the JLG paper, the first Consul- General were also Head of the Jig and the latter's activities were totally subsumed within the Consualte- General, the Political Section would probably need to be strengthened to give him additional support;

the Commercial Section would need to be larger if the South China Trade Unit was incorporated in it;

c) we shall need in due course to consult the Home Office about the size and staffing of Consular Section;

d) two DS10s might not be enough to cope with Registry/communications;

e)

THIS IS A COPY

THE ORIGINAL HAS BEEN RETAINED IN THE DEPARTMENT UNDER

SECTION 3 (4) OF THE PUBLIC RECORDS ACT 1958

3.

f)

we shall need to keep a careful watch on language requirements. The Consul-General and at least one member of the Political Section will need Mandarin, while the Commercial and Consular Sections may each require at least one speaker of Cantonese.

The foregoing represents a significant increase on what has already caused Richard Evans (In his letter of 19 December to the PUS) to express surprise at our ideas. I note too from your letter of 17 April to the PUS that you considered our assessment possibly on the high side, although reasonable for planning purposes. Before considering the question

CONFIDENTIAL

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