TNAG-1594-FCO40-2179-Honk-Kong-leading-personality-Sir-Yue-Kong-Pao--businessman-1987 — Page 36

BACKGROUND

The general background to the Scheme is described in the attached brief which

was provided for the reception on 17 September for the first students to

arrive. The Minister proposes to present Sir Y K Pao with a photograph in

recognition of the fact that the reception was initially proposed by Sir Y K

Pao as Chairman of the SBFSS Commission.

2.

Although we have no certain information it seems most likely that Sir

Y.K. Pao particularly wishes to call on the Minister at this point to discuss

his proposal that a Foundation official, Mr William Lee, should be appointed

as Honorary Secretary to the Commission which supervises the Scheme.

3. We first encountered this proposal in the draft minutes of the

Commission's second meeting, which took place in Hong Kong on 2 June. The

draft minutes, which were prepared by the Foundation, said that the Commission had agreed to the proposal by the Chairman (Sir Y.K. Pao) that Mr William Lee.

should be appointed Honorary Secretary and that his travel expenses should be

met by the Scheme.

4.

In any

We have objected to the Foundation that our representative at the

meeting, Dr Iredale (who, with Mr Caines, is one of the two British

Commissioners) did not recall this point having been raised at all.

case, if it had been (and it should certainly have been circulated on paper

beforehand) we would have had to object to it because the Memorandum of

Understanding establishing the Scheme makes no provision for any Secretariat.

This was not an oversight: the subject was discussed fully during negotiations

with Sir Y.K. Pao's London representative, Mr Stephen Pan, as well as the

Chinese State Education Commission (SEDC). All parties were agreed then that

the Commission was intended to exercise only a general supervisory role and

that all day-to-day management of the Scheme would be carried out by the

British Council/ODA and the SEDC. Since then, the Commission has approved

mechanisms for reaching decisions (for example, between meetings) without any

Secretariat to circulate papers and keep records, and these have worked well.

5.

We also objected particularly to the suggestion that the Scheme should

pay for some of Mr Lee's expenses, because when the MOU was negotiated we had

to concede that the British Council's administration costs (about £0.25m p.a)