TNAG-1837-FCO40-2612-House-of-Commons-Select-Committee-on-Foreign-Affairs-enquiry-1989 — Page 16

CODE 18-77

CONFIDENTIAL

Reference....

FILE (35

ARPAPV

From:

A R Paul

THKB 011/3

Date:

31 January 1989

Miss Elliot

CC:

Mr McLaren (info) Miss Marsden

Mr Wood

Mr Footman

FOREIGN AFFAIRS COMMITTEE:

1.

PREPARATORY RESEARCH

I discussed with you earlier this week the urgent need to begin preparatory research into a number of issues that are certain to come up in the context of the Foreign Affairs Committee enquiry into Hong Kong.

Miss Grier is now obtaining the relevant back files from LRD. I suggested that we would need an additional cupboard to keep them in.

2.

3.

The issues on which we shall need to focus include:

Nationality. What were the factors behind our decisions on nationality affecting Hong Kong people's right of abode in the UK? The story begins in 1972, and we shall need to go back to that point.

Vietnamese boat people. We need to have at our disposal the relevant records of the 1979 Geneva Conference on Indo-Chinese Refugees. In particular we need to be able to quote the exact understandings/agreements reached at that time on first asylum and

and the resettlement: the input which HMG made to that Conference: consultations which we had with the Hong Kong Government at that

It would be useful to know what other Governments said about resettlement at the Conference.

time.

Representative government in Hong Kong:

it would be useful

to have the files giving the background to the Green and White Papers on representative government which were endorsed in Hong Kong in 1984. We should prepare a detailed dossier of exactly what Ministers have said on the subject of democracy in Hong Kong.

I take it that the files on the 1987 Review are still in the Department.

4.

I suggest we meet (with Section Heads) on Monday 6 February (at 1030 am) to take stock of the situation and finalise a forward work plan.

A Pand

A R Paul

CONFIDENTIAL