CONFIDENTIAL
KC 121/5
D J Hall, Esq
Department of Trade and Industry
1-19 Victoria Street
LONDON SW1
Dear John,
kile
4
Foreign and Commonwealth Office
London SW1A 2AH
HONG KONG:
LETTER FROM LORD DERWENT
30 January 1989
I enclose a draft reply from Lord Glenarthur to Lord Derwent's letter of 19 January. I should be very grateful for your comments.
You and I have already discussed the various points raised by Lord Derwent, and Robin McLaren has had a similar discussion with John Cooke. I think we are agreed that there is little merit in Lord Derwent's ideal of "privatising the Senior British Trade Commissioner : a businessman could not do much more for British firms than the firms could do for themselves if they put their mind to it; "privatising" would hardly be consistent with the higher official profile which many people here and in Hong Kong have been calling for: and with a view to 1997, it would make little sense to make a radical change in our commercial representation in Hong Kong now, only to have have to revert to official representation through a British Consulate-General in Hong Kong from 1997.
The attached draft incorporates all these points, except the 1997 one. I am inclined to think that we need not at this stage reveal to Lord Derwent (and to whomever he chooses to show the letter) our plans for the British Consulate-General. In any case, Lord Derwent is likely to return to the charge sooner or later, and it might be tactically sensible to have one or two further arguments up our sleeve. I should be grateful for your advice on this.
CONFIDENTIAL
/Lord
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