TNAG-2919-FCO40-4194-International-support-for-Hong-Kong-the-Americas--excluding--1993 — Page 3

CONFIDENTIAL

On themes for discussion, we would in principle be happy to discuss any aspects of Hong Kong of interest to other participants. But we would hope to spend up to half the time on a thorough discussion of the crucial political issues (Section A of your list). In the course of this, I and the Hong Kong Representative would be happy to give a full presentation on the present situation and the way ahead as we see it both on the electoral issues and more generally in our relations with China over Hong Kong.

We would propose to cover other items more briefly. Some of them are highly technical, and detailed discussion would be best left to the experts (eg in Air Services). Some of the items fall into the area of Hong Kong's autonomy. On those, I would not contribute myself and would leave it to the Hong Kong Representative to do so. On Hong Kong and the Commonwealth, this is a subject of relevance only to Canada, the UK and Australia and might best be discussed briefly among the three of us plus the Hong Kong representatives in the margins.

One other agenda item we would like to suggest is international support for Hong Kong's Vietnamese migrant problem.

You mentioned to me on the telephone that your proposal on timing is now 31 January 1 February. I fear that this poses problems for us, not least since we have an important meeting of Ministers and the Governor during the previous week. We will need a little time to digest the outcome of that and develop our thinking on the next steps on the constitutional issues before we would be in a position to do justice to that issue at the meeting. We would therefore prefer it if the meeting could take place in late February or early March and would try our best to fall in with the preferences of your Government and other participants over precise details during that period. One constraint of which you should be aware is that I will be leaving this department on 28 March. We would therefore like the meeting to take place well before that.

Once again, we appreciate the Canadian initiative in

proposing this meeting and look forward to participating in what promises to be a most interesting occasion.

You Sincerel

Bevors.

PF Ricketts

CONFIDENTIAL