TNAG-1891-FCO40-2684-Visits-by-Sir-Geoffrey-Howe-and-by-Douglas-Hurd--Secretaries-1989 — Page 31

Miss Marsden, HKD

CONFIDENTIAL

HKB 026/20

106

Secretary of State's Visit to Hong Kong: Speech

We spoke on the telephone about the draft attached to Mr Paul's minute of 22 June which the Secretary of State saw last night. He is broadly content with the outline. As you will see from manuscript amendments on the text, he would like the first tiret of paragraph 4 to be revised, deleting the reference to Chamberlain and reminding people of the key components of the Joint Declaration. He would also like to drop the reference to "any British Government" in paragraph 13. He would like to stress the British interest and commitment to Hong Kong. I also wonder if it might be worth putting in a paragraph or two on what we have done on the boat people question in the last few weeks; this is not, of course, the key concern in Hong Kong at the moment, but we should perhaps try to take some credit where we

can.

23 June 1989

CC: PS/Lord Glenarthur

PS/Mr Eggar

Mr Gillmore

Mr

McLaren

Mr Paul, HKD

Mr Burns, News Dept

CONFIDENTIAL

(R N Peirce)