TNAG-2743-FCO40-3958-Visits-by-Commonwealth-officials--ministers-and-public-figur-1993 — Page 161

Ms Carol Yip

CAB

CGO

Dear Carol

COMMONWEALTH LINKS

CONFIDENTIAL

55/4

OFFICE OF THE BRITISH SENIOR REPRESENTATIVE,

SINO-BRITISH JOINT LIAISON GROUP HONG KONG

14 October 1992

1. Thank you for your minute of 23 September enclosing a draft paper on this subject.

2. We agree with the general thrust of the paper. It is clear that all formal/official links with the Commonwealth will have to cease by 1997. It is equally clear that we would stand a much better chance of maintaining informal links of the sort described in the paper by not consulting the Chinese. Our guess is that

the Chinese actually much prefer not to be consulted on such a matter; and that if they were we would get hopelessly bogged down in discussion with them.

3. In practice, given the provision of BL 149, the Chinese are unlikely to interfere unless they were obliged to do so by some kind of high profile Commonwealth event. Participation in the Commonwealth Games, for example, would fall into this category.

Yours Sincerely

Alan Pawe

A R Paul

CONFIDENTIAL

INSTITUTIO VAL

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AFFAIRS

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