TNAG-2743-FCO40-3958-Visits-by-Commonwealth-officials--ministers-and-public-figur-1993 — Page 109

lai22.3

BY FAX

CONFIDENTIAL

Foreign & Commonwealth

Office

(17

22 March 1993

Peter Lai Esq

Government Secretariat

HKB

Lower Albert Road HONG KONG

Dear Peter,

020/1

RECEIVED IN REGISTRY

26

DESK OFFICER

REGISTRY

INDEX

PA

Action Taxan

London SWIA 2AH

Telephone: 071-

fax

Ms More Cisli

THE FUTURE OF HONG KONG'S LINKS WITH THE COMMONWEALTH

Za

21311

Zes

Thank you for your letters of 9 December and 4 February about a draft Executive Council memorandum on the future of Hong Kong's links with the Commonwealth.

I am sorry our reply has taken a little time: we have been collecting views from the (widely-dispersed) Whitehall Departments with an interest in the various Commonwealth issues covered in your Annexes.

We agree with the approach in your draft memorandum.

As you say, Hong Kong's links with the Commonwealth can no longer continue at governmental level after 1997 but there is no reason why this should preclude informal links where possible. I imagine that, in many cases, it is the network of informal links that is of most benefit to Hong Kong organisations. The more of these that can be transformed into links with individual institutions or Commonwealth countries, the better from the point of view of presenting a "stealth" target to the Chinese. We agree that it would be wholly counterproductive to raise with the Chinese either the general question of Commonwealth links, or the move to informal relations. They would be bound to see this as a strategy for retaining British influence covertly.

Our Legal Adviser has commented that the Chinese may find difficulties with the proposed alternative links detailed in Annex A items 1 and 6, (and in particular 6(b)) and Annex C, item 7. It seems to us that the answer is to get these links established now on an informal basis, so that they can be well entrenched by 1997. There is no reason why any of them should be particularly visible once the SAR is established. We are content with the proposed continued links with the Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) (Annex C, item 2). Are you in touch with the CWGC locally?

CONFIDENTIAL