20
香港總督府
MKB 063/1
SECRET AND PERSONAL
บา
GOVERNMENT HOUSE
HONG KONG
Spolan Me Paul
may go
14 January 1991
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30/1
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McStone (personal) 24%
Hong Kong Patrol Craft
Thank you for your letter of 31 December and the copy of the MOD's record of my call on Sir Michael Quinlan on 7 December.
The MOD record is generally accurate, as one would hope and expect. But there is one significant lacuna and one significant error. (Our own record of the meeting prepared by Richard Hoare is attached). The two key points of difference are:
Redacted Under FOI Exemption Sec 27(1)
a) I actually said that HMG had made a commitment to the Chinese to keep the Royal Navy in Hong Kong up to 1997.
It did not commit
HMG to keep the Royal Navy at precisely the level it was in 1987; but it would be taken by the Chinese as going back on what was said and implied then if no naval patrol craft remained after 1992. I hope it is not true, as stated in the MOD record, that the FCO share what is given as the MOD view.
b) The MOD record omits any reference to what Sir Michael Quinlan said at the end of our discussion about it being helpful if we could find a way of managing things so that, even if the contribution of the two sides remained unchanged overall, MOD were paid at an earlier stage so that they obtained a practical financial benefit. This was a tentative suggestion and I took it as no more than that. But it was a
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