CONFIDENTIAL
British Embassy
11 Guang Hua Lu Jian Guo Men Wai
Peking People's Republic of China
Telex 22191 Cable Prodrome Peking Telephone 521961/2/3/4/5
CE Leeks Esq Government House HONG KONG
67
Your reference
Our reference
Date
8 May 1989
HKB 020/6
Jun Minton,
Enter +pm.
Терона
ARBITRATION AND PRC ORGANISATIONS
1.
2.
54
Thank you for your teleletter of 20 April.
Mme Feng Cui, First Secretary at the Hong Kong and Macao Affairs Office of the MFA asked me to call on her on 8 May to receive the MFA's response to my various approaches about the question of arbitration and PRC organisations.
3. She read out a Speaking Note, a copy of which I enclose. In concluding her remarks, she said that I was welcome to study it but that she was not empowered to expand in any way on its terms. I thanked Mme Feng for these comments and said that, in essence, our question had been quite simple: was it indeed the case the the contractural clause providing for arbitration in Hong Kong was invalid as a "violation of sovereignty" forbidden by the Chinese Constitution? I had the impression from the points in Mme Feng's Speaking Note that this was not so. Mme Feng said that my interpretation was correct.
4.
Although Mme Feng's Speaking Note does not answer our question as directly as I should have wished I think it is pretty clear that the Guangdong Maritime Court had been quite wrong in refusing to recognise Hong Kong Arbitration. I suspect the note's imprecision is a deliberate attempt not to admit clearly that the Court was at fault (by way of background, Perry Keller, our then Legal Research Assistant, described the Guangdong Maritime Court to me last December as "the greatest bunch of bozos" he had ever come across in the Legal Profession - the Chairman of the Court is, apparently, a retired Transport Policeman!). therefore see little mileage in pursuing this particular
I
CONFIDENTIAL
/case
No comments yet.
Private notes are available after approval.