TNAG-2714-FCO40-3920-House-of-Commons-Select-Committee-on-Foreign-Affairs-enquiry-1993 — Page 83

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REGISTRY Action Taken

The Rt. Hon. Christopher Patten

Government House

Hong Kong

FAC VISIT : 16-19 OCTOBER, 1993

35

20 May, 1993

We have already reported to you our first meeting with the FAC clerks, the purpose of which was a preliminary discussion on logistics (our Fax LOT 1205 of 18 May).

Yesterday, David Howell, Michael Jopling, David Harris and David Martin came to lunch at Cowley Street. This was one of our monthly briefing sessions for MPs on current events. David Tsui and I took the opportunity to brief them on the BNO conversion issue. As three out of the four are FAC members there was also a discussion on who they should see in Hong Kong. As you know, they will not take formal evidence, but they would like to see, inter alia :-

(i)

(ii)

representatives of the major political parties;

a

Japanese and US businessmen (I suggested breakfast meeting with the relevant Chambers of Commerce);

(iii)

NCNA (and possibly PRC businessmen based in Hong Kong).

The FAC will only be in Hong Kong from Saturday 16 October (from China) to Tuesday 19 October (to Taiwan). So they would like to treat Sunday 17th as a working day.

This

When the FAC visited Hong Kong in 1989 we provided a liaison officer and they heard evidence in the old LegCo Chamber. time there will be no formal

formal evidence taking and David Howell prefers to meet people on neutral territory, e.g. in an hotel. However, he thinks the time has not yet arrived when it would be appropriate for the Committee to be assisted by the BTC rather than