TNAG-2349-FCO40-3418-Political-relations-between-Hong-Kong--China-and-the-Europea-1991 — Page 5

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doubt supplement his efforts after my own arrival in Hong Kong, adding, perhaps, a more political/China-orientated dimension to the dialogue.

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I do not, however, favour the creation of a "supporters

club" in any formal sense of the word. From modest beginnings, such a concept might soon grow out of our control. Knowledge of it could in due course leak to the

Chinese. Whilst we and the countries concerned have a

common interest in Hong Kong's future stability and prosperity, we approach the issues from somewhat different angles. The US, Canada and Australia have vociferous and

articulate overseas Chinese communities and tend to place

great emphasis on human rights, development of democracy etc. The Japanese, on the other hand, care little about human rights and democracy and place greater emphasis on Hong Kong's economic viability and its strategic importance. Singapore's interests are, I think, closer to those of Japan, although we should not forget that Hong Kong and Singapore are competitors in many respects.

5. In sum, therefore, I think that we should keep the dialogue bilateral, rather than multilateral.

6. Mr Cox has produced a comprehensive analysis of the scope for mobilising community support for Hong Kong and I agree generally with his conclusions. But as indicated above, I see no evidence that our EC partners interest in Hong Kong is qualitively the same, or of the same order of

magnitude, as that of the "core countries". Our EC partners

see Hong Kong as "our problem" and rightly) fear that intervention with the Chinese over Hong Kong issues would

serve only to complicate their relations with China.

ARRAN

A R Paul

SAKACM/2

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