TNAG-2771-FCO40-3988-Coverage-of-Sino-British-talks-in-the-Hong-Kong-press-1993 — Page 61

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given permission to civil servants belonging to Her Majesty's Overseas Civil Service in HK to apply for early retirement and receive their pensions immediately, Zheng Guoxiong of the local NCNA said the issue involved basic changes in the Civil service system and should be discussed with the Chinese side. Zheng said the issue concerned retirement of a batch of civil servants and whether this would cause convergence problems in staff deployment. Therefore it should be handled with caution..

Land Commission

21.

Papers (6.10) accorded good coverage to the farewell reception to the Chinese head of the Sino-British Land Commission, Sun Yanheng. Sun was quoted as saying he hoped the Sino-British talks would succeed. Even if the talks failed, the Chinese Land Commission would still take into account the interests of HK people. Sun said the Chinese side dealt with land issues from the point of view of HK people. But he was not clear whether the Land Commission's functions could remain independent of the Sino-British

talks.

Stationing of Troops

22. The September issue of the Contemporary magazine carried a report that according to sources, the Chinese military force to be stationed in HK after 1997 had been training in Shenzhen since July. It was understood that families of the troops would not come to HK but would stay at a support base in Shenzhen. The article said the force equivalent to a brigade, would comprise troops from Guangzhou, air units from Naning, and naval forces from Shantou. The commander would come from Peking and hold a rank equivalent to that of a deputy commander in a major military region. During training, arrangements would be made for officers to visit HK for familiarisation under disguise.

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