TNAG-2669-FCO40-3866-Hong-Kong-Civil-Service-1993 — Page 110

CONFIDENTIAL

FM FCO

TO PRIORITY HONG KONG

TELNO 810

OF 10161OZ SEPTEMBER 93

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MDLOAN 1194

INFO PRIORITY PEKING, UKREP JLG HONG KONG

UKREP JLG HONG KONG TELNO 278: JLG XXVII AGENDA: LOCALISATION POLICY

HKA 016/1

16 SEP 1993

1.

You will no doubt be preparing speaking notes and defensive material for JLG XXVII on the change in the localisation policy to rebut any accusations from the Chinese side that the change breaches an agreement reached between Britain and China in 1986 (as claimed in editorials in Ta Kung Pao and Wen Wei Po on 5 August).

2. We have examined the 1986 Papers and can find no record of any agreement. However, one point the Chinese may make is that HKG's paper on the localisation policy (of which we have only the draft contained in your telno 2111 of 1986) stated that quote we do not believe any further changes in the policy will be necessary unquote. In rebutting any claim that we have broken this undertaking you can point that we had no plans to change the policy at that time and also that the policy applied mainly at the recruitment stage as is is apparent from a careful reading of the paper. The question of renewal of agreements is mentioned in the paper as part of the implementation of the policy but not as one of its central features.

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