CONFIDENTIAL
(Laid Canthers wrote
on lies recommended
Revised submission to sas)
PS/Lord Caithness
Private Secretary
Pa
in
11/1
нка 233/1
AUSTRY
1 1 MAR 1992
EP
FROM: R A-Burns
DATE: 9 March 1992
CC:
PS/PUS
Sir J Coles
Mr Cox, HKD
Mr Davies, FED
Mr Muir
Miss Brooks, Legal
Advisers
Mr Kerby, ODA
Mr Fish, ODA
HONG KONG: HMOCS
1. I have discussed this further with Mr Cox and Mr Ricketts, and we have slightly recast the draft letter to Sir David Ford. There is no need to be particularly devious about this. We have cleared our lines with the Treasury about what we should say on the compensation point. There could be a problem with the Treasury over sterling safeguards, and we shall have to agree a form of words with them for use with the Chinese if we get tackled on the point. But having come as far as we have now, it would be a great shame not to confirm to the Hong Kong Government the position we have reached in agreement with the Treasury on the question of incentives and compensation.
2. I therefore agree with the revised version of the draft letter to the Chief Secretary, and with the minute to go from the Secretary of State to the Chief Secretary, which alludes now to the Secretary of State's conversation this morning with Mr Qian Qichen. I am sorry that the draft minute is on the long side, but the subject is complex, and we need to get the detail right.
EM5AAQ
RA Burns
CONFIDENTIAL
83
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