UNCLASSIFIED
تة
577
✪ copy i HK seph co
Guüür
BRITISH EMBASSY,
MOSCOW
28 May 1968
Dear John,
China and Hong Kong
Pravda of 26 May devoted much of its "Events in China" column to the position of Hong Kong. It summarised a recent Hsinhua statement which had catalogued the uses made by United States forces of Hong Kong as a base for aggression against Vietnam, and remarked tartly that the situation although scandalous was not new. The United States had used Hong Kong since the first days of the war. Hong Kong was however Chinese ground. Even the British did not deny Chinese ownership of that part of the territory which they had leased in 1897 (sic) for 99 years. Hong Kong was dependent on China for much of its supplies of food, water and raw materials. Beginning in 1965 the Chinese Foreign Ministry had sent "an energetic protest" every year to the British who had ignored them because they knew that China obtained 600 700 million dollars a year from their trade with Hong Kong (about half her total hard currency earnings), and reckoned that this would be the determining factor in China's relations with Hong Kong whereas the "energetic protests' were made purely "to save face“. Pravda said in conclusion that the only new development in the situation was that this year Peking had not even sent the regular formal protest to the British.
I have sent a copy of this letter to Chancery Peking and the Political Adviser, Hong Kong.
2.
J.D.I. Boyd,
Far Eastern Department,
Foreign Office.
Yours sincerely
Gerald
(G. E. Clark)