TNAG-1739-FCO40-2455-Relations-between-Hong-Kong-and-the-UK-1988 — Page 3

CONE LUEN I LAU

15.

HK6020/12

JAN 289

Mr Furness, SPD

FROM: D H Colvin

South East Asian Department

DATE: 20 December 1988

CC: Mr McLaren

PACIFIC RIM HEADS OF MISSION CONFERENCE

Mr Cooper, FED Mr Hum, HKD

1. Please refer to your minute of 15 December.

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23/12

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2.

I see considerable logic and some attractions in the concept of a Pacific Rim Heads of Mission Conference. At the South-East Asian Heads of Mission Conference in Singapore it was unanimously agreed that the traditional method of carving up Asia (South, South East, East, Far East and South Pacific), is increasingly arbitrary and unsatisfactory in an inter-dependent global economy. The concept of the "Western Pacific Rim" found greatest favour as an identifiable and manageable economic entity. It would embrace the four Asian NIEs, China, Japan and Australia but exclude the Western Seaboard of North, Central and South America (although I am inclined to agree with Mr Hum that we might include the Western Seaboard of North America).

3. I agree that any Western Pacific Rim Heads of Mission Conference should be selective. Of the SEAD territories listed in Canberra telno 877, we could dispense with Bandar Seri Begawan, Rangoon and Hanoi without much difficulty. Bandar is sui generis (and de minimis) while Rangoon and Hanoi are egregious exceptions to the rapidly growing prosperity of the region.

Thin

DH Colvin

CONFIDENTIAL