BRITISH EMBASSY
No 1 Ichiban-Cho Chiyoda-ku Tokyo
Telex J22755 (A/B PRODROME) Telephone 265-5511
Y
Ng Yat-Hing
Your reference
President
Our reference
The Hong Kong Reparation Association 242 Fuk Wing Street 1/FL
Date
26 January 1990
Kowloon
HONG KONG
Dear Mr Ng
Thank you for your letter of 18 December 1989 addressed to the Ambassador. I have been asked to reply.
You have asked that the Embassy should pass on to the Government of Japan your request that Japanese wartime banknotes held by Chinese citizens in Hong Kong should be redeemed. We have taken note of the information you have provided to us. We do not however hold any papers here on this issue and do not know therefore the precise nature of any detailed settlement reached between the UK and Japan, further to the Treaty of San Francisco relating to compensation for Hong Kong citizens. If, as you imply, Hong Kong citizens were treated unfavourably in comparison with citizens of other occupied countries in respect of compensation for currency issued by occupation forces, we also do not have information on the reasons or why, if the overall settlement was indeed unsatisfactory, it would be appropriate to reopen the subject now forty-five years after the end of the war.
More generally, this is not a subject that the Embassy could take up with the Government of Japan without instructions from our authorities in London. If you wish to seek the support of the British Government I suggest therefore that you take the issue up in the first instance with the Hong Kong Government.
Yours sincerely
Diflowell
DH Powell
Chancery
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