TNAG-2798-FCO40-4038-Hong-Kong-six-monthly-meetings-of-foreign-ministers-1993 — Page 40

CONFIDENTIAL

Dr. Han

As

now

you

27A

know, the Resisterial

coonsmittels

coons militiels to take

:: falls away.

plane. This

1 MAR 1997

Private Secretary The demiter

agrees.

6.J. Drey it15

From:

CO Hum

1715

Date:

17 May 1993

CC:

Mr Fry, FED

18/

PS/Mr Goodlad

Private Secretary

HONG KONG: MEETING BETWEEN THE SECRETARY OF STATE AND THE CHINESE FOREIGN MINISTER IN THE MARGINS OF THE SECURITY COUNCIL MEETING

1.

I appreciate that the Secretary of State will have a very tight programme on 21 May if a Security Council meeting and a round of important bilateral discussions on Bosnia have to be fitted in. This will inevitably cut down the time for a contact with Qian. There is of course still a question-mark over Qian's participation, as well as over whether a Security Council meeting will be held at all. Sir R McLaren had an opportunity to ask Jiang Enzhu informally today whether Qian would attend a Security Council meeting: Jiang said that Qian was very busy but did not rule attendance out.

2.

I

Mr.Banten,

Exter

(th)

for entos?

Cro

HKC 021/4

In any event we need to look ahead at possible arrangements for a more substantive meeting. The formal k position is as follows:

I

3.

the airport MOU commits the two Foreign Ministers to "meet twice a year to discuss matters of mutual concern";

the last such meeting was in September 1992 in New York, and the previous one in London in March 1993;

although the MOU has nothing to say about location the Chinese presumption will certainly be that the next meeting in the series should take place in Peking.

On timing, therefore, if the terms of the MOU are to be met a meeting will in practice need to take place in June or July. We are all agreed that it would be undesirable for the Secretary of State to go to Peking in circumstances in which he might be sucked into unfinished negotiations on Hong Kong. But there is no other obvious multilateral occasion on which the Secretary of State and Qian are likely to meet. Nor do we know of any convenient overseas travel by Qian, who has only just returned from a visit to a number of Western European countries.

1

19/5

CONFIDENTIAL