TNAG-2056-FCO40-2934-Hong-Kong-and-the-Organisation-for-Economic-Cooperation-and--1990 — Page 103

2.2.

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one representing a soverign state. But it may be possible to argue that Hong Kong, though not a sovereign state, does have its own government with a very considerable degree of autonomy in the conduct of its own affairs. That said, we should not exclude the possibility of some challenge to the legal credentials of any membership bid on Hong Kong's behalf.

(D) Political Problems

the chier Of these 19 the nervouaneag ot the OECD membership to a negative Chinese reaction. Certain OECD members might consider that an agreement to bring HK into the OECD fold would be construed as an unfriendly act by Peking (perhaps more for fear of getting precedents for Taiwan rather then for exclusively Hong Kong reasons), and that China may consequently start to raise problems over the OECD/DAE dialogue (in respect of both HK and Taiwan). The Secretary-General and the membership have SO far taken great care to avoid offending Chinese sensibilities in the OECD/DAE dialogue, to good effect. They would certainly be loath to jeopardise this achievment. One might expect FRG, Australia, Japan and the US to be among the most

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4.

ΟΠ the legal side, it may be easier to argue for SOMA intermediary form of association than for full membership. Though the Convention does not provide explicitly for such things, there is a precedent: Yugoslavia has been an associate member for many years. The key difference is that the Yugoslavs do not have any voting powers, and are excluded from certain committees. Schricke did however say that there were quite a few Cageg of other international organisations giving associate or observer status to entities that were not sovereign states.

5.

The political objection would be Legg easy to overcome. Given the likely reaction of certain partners, it would seem advisable to check first with China whether they would see major obstacles to Hong Kong becoming either a full or an associate member of OECD. The latter (intermediate) status could range widely from, at one end of the spectrum, something approaching the Yugoslav model, to at the other end, liaison with one or more

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Though this is a question for FCO departments, there may be some tactical mileage in such an approach, even

even if we reckoned that the Chinese reaction would be negative. It might be a useful negotiating (dis) card in our discussions with Peking, in that we might agree to drop our plans to press

for QECD membership/observership for Hong Kong in return for some concession from Peking in an area of value to us. But it would seem ill-advisable to pursue this question openly with the OECD

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