TNAG-2566-FCO40-3751-Agreements-between-the-Hong-Kong-Special-Administrative-Regi-1992 — Page 14

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2

question specific

Branches,

which

(your paragraph 5) has not so far yielded any proposals, although CAB, together with other is still considering whether there are other subjects (particularly in the economic and commercial field) on

agreement could be of benefit to Hong Kong.

In

this connection, it occurred to us that JD 25 could provide a useful basis on which to peg any approach to the Chinese side in the JLG. I will let you know of our further thoughts on this as soon as our consideration is complete.

Mechanisms

4.

We were grateful for your thoughts on this question. We are reluctant to accept (at least at this stage) that the choice of options is quite as stark as suggested in paragraph 8 of your letter. It seems to us that our first choice should be to seek to persuade the Chinese that we should proceed along lines similar to those followed for other countries i.e. the UK negotiates an agreement with the

with submission of the initialled agreement JLG.

to the Chinese side for endorsement through the If content, the Chinese side in the JLG would undertake to authorise the HKSAR Government to sign the initialled agreement on 1 July 1997. This is what I had in mind when making the suggestions I did in paragraphs 3 and 4 of my letter to you of 16 September last year.

5.

As I said there, the main difference between UK agreements and others would, of course, be that UK agreements could not be signed or enter into force until 1 July 1997. Such agreements would also have to adhere very closely to the model texts negotiated with the Chinese side although, in our view, it would be entirely defensible to seek some of the variations which have become standard and accepted by the Chinese side in relation to other States and to

make adjustments to deal with particular aspects of UK law or technical policy requirements. In this connection, we note your concern about the need for a no re-surrender provision in any UK/HKSARG extradition Such a provision has, as you know, been accepted by the Chinese side in the Netherlands Agreement and appears

in the other three agreements So far Provided we can persuade the Chinese side on the principle of endorsing agreements negotiated between the UK and the HKG, we are, therefore, confident that there would not be too much difficulty in getting the variations we will need.

agreement.

initialled.

CONFIDENTIAL