800.796/6–2044
Memorandum of Conversation, by the Chief of the Aviation Division (Morgan)
| Participants: | Mr. Chang Kia-Ngau |
| Mr. Felton Chow | |
| Mr. Morgan, AD |
Minister Chang called at his request, accompanied by Mr. Felton Chow, and brought with him the draft of the bilateral agreement and asked for clarification of one or two points, particularly with relation to freedom of transit. I think I explained this matter to his satisfaction.
Minister Chang then said that with respect to procedure he thought his Government would have to suggest a few modifications. I assume that these will be in relation to restriction of freedom of transit, which seems to be giving them considerable concern.
He asked me if we expected these bilateral agreements to be identical with all countries. I told him that while we would like to see that I did not think we could anticipate it with any confidence. We had actually drawn up the agreement in the way in which we would like to see it concluded, but we realized that probably all the nations would have some suggestions for modifications and we would not stand rigidly on our text. We hoped, however, that all would adopt the general practices. This was, of course, not intended to be a multilateral treaty which must have the same text for all, and it would ultimately work out as a series of bilateral agreements of which perhaps no two would be exactly the same.
Minister Chang then went on to say that he would have some suggestions to make and, if we approved, he would like to submit them first here for discussion before transmitting the document with comments to his own Government. He thought that any differences which we could iron out here would expedite matters. I told him I agreed with this and suggested that he submit his comments and specific suggestions for changes in the draft to me as soon as they were ready and that I would transmit them to the other members of the consulting group for their study, and that we could then have another conference of the two full groups to discuss the question of a redraft. He said he would follow this procedure.
In conclusion, Minister Chang said that the British and Canadians were asking him about our talks and asked what I thought he could say. I told him that I thought he was at liberty to tell them anything about the talks that he wanted to, that we were not trying to keep anything secret from our other friends.