TNAG-2825-FCO40-4076-Future-of-Hong-Kong-terrorism-and-counter-terrorism-1993 — Page 15

OVER HOUSE HONG KONG.

051/2

RECE!

FRI 03 DEC $3 09:58

TRY

LUDE CONFIDENTIAL

Ep. 9.051/2

PG.02

14

By fax

布政司 署

香港下亞畢道

*** Our Ref.:

來菌償號 Your Ref.:

John Morris Esq

Hong Kong Department

FCO

Dew

бы

1. Copy to

Сори

GOVERNMENT SECRETARIAT

LOWER ALBERT ROAD

HONG KONG

7

Mr Mar's

Mr Cobrest

ф

3 December 1993

Mr Freeman sen

Hory Kang civil ferrents

(especially the expatriates) are

notorioush touchy about Fco.

PERSONAL

I haven't re-read the correspondence,

and did that myself detect any 'fandescencion" in your telegrams.

Bu

Exercise Vulgate

a

perkt wordt dearing

in mind

As the dust settles after Exercise Vulgate last week, Security Branch will be sending shortly a factual account of how it went. But I know there was some concern in the FCO about the handling of the international and London dimensions: Peter Ricketts had a word about this with Bob Peirce in Peking the other day. I therefore thought it might be helpful if I sent you a few personal observations on these aspects.

Two factors influenced our decision not to invite the UK to participate as a player in the exercise. First, HMG was not involved in the most recent previous exercises of this kind and indeed, according to our tribal memory, showed little interest in them. Second, and far more important, this may well have been the last such exercise before 1997. There was a strong desire here to set as little precedent as possible for high profile PRC involvement in post-1997 counter-terrorist exercises (and indeed incidents). For that reason alone, I am sure you will agree that it was right to minimise HMG's profile.

That said, I readily acknowledge that the FCO should have been informed at an earlier stage, and indeed consulted before approaches were made to the US Consulate-General, As soon as we in the Political Adviser's office learned, quite late in the day, of what was being planned, we insisted that a telegram be sent: even then, we had to push hard for some time before Hong Kong telno 1721 was able to issue. In the event, the US Consulate-General did not play a noticeably active role, perhaps because the exercise coincided with Thanksgiving. There was for example no "diplomatic pressure" from Washington over our handling of events. But I could understand it if there were some ruffled feathers in the FCO at not having been consulted, or even informed, before any approach was made to the Americans, and indeed that an FBI observer was invited without a

Lick

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