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FROM:
A R Paul
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290
RECEIVE IN
Y
13 SEP 1990
DATE:
Hong Kong Department
5 September 1990
Mr Seaton
FED
Cc:
Mr McLaren
Mr Burns
Ms Cowley, CRD
Mr Ellis, East Asian Unit,
British Council
Mr Connor, POD
Mr Almond, Protocol Dept
33
BRITISH COUNCIL: POST IN SOUTH CHINA
1.
Your minute of 24 August refers.
2.
We have no objection from a Hong Kong point of view. The appointment of a Hong Kong based South China Regional Officer last November, when relations with Chinese were considerably more strained than they are now, does not appear to have attracted any adverse comment in the Hong
Kong press.
As the new British Council office will not be primarily concerned with inter-governmental relations but with "people-to-people contacts" such as English langauge teaching and student exchanges, we think that the decision to go ahead could be defended without too much difficulty in Hong Kong. Indeed the plan to move the South China Regional Officer to Canton might have some advantage if it is presented as a way of emphasising the separate status of Hong Kong from South China after 1997.
ARPE
A R Paul
BAYABX/1
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