布政司署
香港下亞厘畢道
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so
GOVERNMENT SECRETARIAT
LOWER ALBERT ROAD
HONG KONG
DIFU ET MON
本署檔號 Our Ref.: SCR 11/4841/62
來函檔號 Your Ref.:
A R Paul Esq
ний
Hong Kong Department
FCO
24 December 1987
Dear Alan
PA
Acron Tzk
HONG KONG
JAPAN CULTURAL AGREEMENT
Mr Woodway
W4/1
Misy Elliot
and
pa.
CME 41
The agreement was duly signed on 15 December. I was away for the signing, after having worked on the project, man and boy, for not much less than two years. It went smoothly on the day. Eight or nine reporters turned up, asked no questions, and the newspapers carried low key and factual articles the next day. OMELCO have had no queries either.
2.
Two last minute hiccups occurred, mercifully while I was
the beach in Borneo. Ron Bridge fell ill, with what at first appeared but luckily turned out not to be a heart attack. Mike Pagliari therefore signed as Secretary for Education and Manpower. Then, on the very eve of the signing, the Japanese asked for the originals, if you please, of the Secretary of State's entrustment to the Governor and the Governor's authorisation to the Secretary for Eduction and Manpower. which is as you know a general entrustment; we merely showed it to them. We handed them the latter, which they have sent to Tokyo and have promised to return to us in due course.
3.
We declined to hand over the former,
This affair has been my first sustained exposure to Japanese bureaucratism. I now know what the Japanologists are talking about. How Japan manages to steal marches on everyone else in business or applied technology is now a mystery to me. It would have been easier to take if the prize had been rather larger than ¥40 million. A case of "parturient montes
if ever there was one.
cc C O Pigott Esq, PEKING
CE J Wilton Esq, TOKYO
11
ever
Yous
Вов
R N Peirce
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