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Dd. 32855 EJ (4200)
The Chinese Waur recently madect clear that fount
Bund
Hong Kang May important role in Sino
the sphere of
genwally.
Bylish relations
of
Crown Cocopy
some fout miction souls
Confidential
.370n the northern edge of South East Asia,
Hong Kong and Taiwan pose special problems in the
West's relations with China.
Z
The Chinese-sná
British interests in Hong Kong are roughly
Hong Kong is hast of China but it a
converses For
them
formet it
A
xa
forward base
also
from which to mount political activities in the
outside world and a valuable source of foreign
exchange; for the er it is a listening post
to Communist China and a centre of important
commercial activity. Other Western countries
also have a conseswaben
of whom opproximately here to a large degree Britain's interest in
half
at British
subjects for whose well being
H.M, & havf a special responsibibly, it
is also
Hong Kong, as is evidenced by their sizeable
diplomatic and commercial representation there.
ideally would 1238In the short term, the Chinese aim appears
like
to be to produce a Macao-type situation, in which
a they would control events in a nominally British
colony so that activities conducive to their
interests could still go on. In the longer term,
their aim is to remove the sole remaining colony
en
and the mainland of Asia, an inevitable irritant
to Chinese pride. Logically, they are likely to
do this only when they consider that their
strength or Western weakness reduce the risks to
an acceptable level. But logic may not prevail
and an earlier takeover bid (certainly before
New Tewituce's on the
the m
1997 when the mainland territories are due to
be returned to China) must be counted a distinct
possibility. In such circumstances, would most
Western European countries wish to regard it
as the ending of an anomalous situation that was
a hindrance to the development of the ir Jong-tera ***extxxxxxxx¤¤rierx*x*£xx£*ex beferex£âƒ£££
/relations