TNAG-2216-FCO40-3183-Position-on-the-Executive-Council-of-Peter-Duffell--Commande-1991 — Page 16

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PERMANENT UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE SIR MICHAEL QUINLAN GCB

PUS/E91/1282

9/20

Dear David,

MINISTRY OF DEFENCE

MAIN BUILDING WHITEHALL LONDON SW1A 2HB

Telephone 071-21 82193 (Direct Dialling)

071-21 89000 (Switchboard)

Rickly tiks

for advice please

a ps hond Caithness

Pslams

Pir

مباحث آنا

Ka foulder

Кім Вито

HONG KONG: CBF ON EXC0 in Smith NipAd

Legal Advis

11 December 1991

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M Sune

Ms Williams

16/12

Ра

Hauppa Sadry

121121 that Many thanks for your letter of 11 November suggesting that the time is right to end CBF Hong Kong's membership of the Executive Council (on the next change of CBF). We spoke later about this.

We do have some difficulty here. As you yourself in part acknowledge, the argument from the need to avoid setting a precedent for the presence of the local PLA commander after 1997 seems of uncertain weight, at best. CBF has sat on EXCO since its earliest days. I should be surprised if this would fail to reach Chinese attention; and equally surprised if they were then materially swayed by the fact that he would not have been on it for the final five years. Moreover, just as we have, realistically, had to abandon any hope of influencing the size and shape of the PLA in Hong Kong after 1997 by adjusting the size and shape of the British garrison before then, the Chinese authorities will surely reach their own decisions on the position to be occupied by the local PLA commander.

More positively, it does seem likely to Dick Vincent and me that CBF wil continue to have a significant role to play on EXCO. As the debate over the future of the patrol craft illustrates, it is already difficult to separate security issues from the wider political background in Hong Kong: and it will surely become more so as 1997 approaches. If there arise major security problems that involve the possible use of garrison assets, is it not likely that their source will lie in political and economic instability rather than in the purely military sphere? Having CBF on EXCO keeps him fully attuned to political and economic developments, and also enables him to advise EXCO directly on what the garrison can (and cannot) do to help ensure the security and stability we all seek between now and 1997. Relying on meetings of the Security Committee - which occur irregularly, I am told and on receiving some papers from EXCO, together with attendance at selected meetings, does not strike us as an adequate substitute for full membership in these respects.

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