HK/ Japan file
R1/10
Mr Burns
HENRY KESWICK
CONFIDENTIAL
35
жк в ого’z
FROM:
A R Paul
Hong Kong Department
DATE:
9 October 1990
CC:
PS/Lord Caithness
Mr McLaren
Miss Marsden
1.
Henry Keswick telephoned me late on 8 October to pass on
a few snippets of information which he had picked up during
his recent visit to Japan and Hong Kong.
2. Mr Keswick said that while in Japan, he had been struck
by the negative attitude which senior Japanese businessmen
were adopting towards the new airport. The Chairman of the Japan Hong Kong Society, and a former Consul General in Hong Kong, Mr Okeda, had told him that there was no way Japan
could provide finance for the airport without a Chinese
Government "guarantee". I commented, and Mr Keswick agreed,
that this approach ignored the stipulations of the Joint Declaration which provided for Hong Kong's autonomy in financial matters. Mr Keswick went on to say that the
people he had spoken to suggested that the odds were against
the project going ahead. They claimed to be very sceptical
about the feasibility of the financing of the project.
3. Mr Keswick said that the Japanese were taking a
generally very cautious attitude towards Hong Kong's future.
I questioned this, pointing out that this hardly squared with the growth in Japanese investment in recent years.
Mr Keswick denied that this was so. The Japanese were not investing in a big way. They were certainly not committing
CC7ADP/1
CONFIDENTIAL
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