TNAG-2790-FCO40-4029-Future-of-Hong-Kong-1993 — Page 192

CONFIDENTIAL

014/1

RECEIVED

CISTRY

FROM:

PF Ricketts

7

1993

Hong Kong Department

DESK C

INDEX

REGISTRY Aarion Taken

DATE:

6 July 1993

CC:

Mr Hum

Mr Cowper-Coles

RAD/LRD Scrutineer

Mr Fry, FED

Mr Wye, RAD

file

57

HONG KONG DEPARTMENT AND RAD

1. I look forward to our talk tomorrow as part of your round of Heads of Department.

2. It may be useful if I put one or two thoughts on paper before that. Hong Kong Department has the unusual, if not unique, problem of conducting a negotiation which has now been going on more or less continuously since 1982. In the course of that, we have reached agreements and understandings ranging from the binding international agreement in the Joint Declaration to much more informal understandings. We have handed over a mass of papers and exchanged probably hundreds of Ministerial messages. The Chinese have long memories: many of the senior officials working on Hong Kong on their side have been continuously involved since 1982. It is essential that we should also have knowledge in depth about the negotiations, as well as a capacity to identify and retrieve relevant past papers.

3.

and

To some extent, we can rely on the Hong Kong Government for that over the next four years, although experience shows that they are not infallible (see below). But we also need to be planning for the period after the Hong Kong Government ceases to exist. We shall still have important continuing obligations to ensure Chinese implementation of the Joint Declaration and any other relevant agreements. We shall need to conduct work in the Joint Liaison Group until the year 2000. But we shall no longer have any HKG research capacity to help us.

4.

We therefore need to be planning now to develop and sustain expertise in the Hong Kong negotiations. If this is not done in RAD, there would have to be some research cell within the Department to provide the necessary continuity. RAD have over the years built up a number of useful research tools such as a concordance on the negotiations, but these need to be kept up to date to be effective. Even more important, we need a research officer who can provide a degree

CONFIDENTIAL

cowpercoles6.7/MIN/NJH