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foodstuffs, in trade through Canton or in manufactures for
which Hong Kong is the outlet.
7. All this, in my view, points to a possible long term
solution of the Hong Kong problem, If China is going to
break up into regional power bases the power base that includes
or has the prospect of including Hong Kong is going to enjoy
a tremendous advantage over the others.
8.
Although therefore this is a long term proposition, which
we have no prospect of implementing now, I submit that what
we must be on the lookout for, and, to the extent we discreetly
can, encourage, is the emergence of a liberal movement in the
Kwantung area strong enough to have the prospect of forming an
eventual Chinese Government and with which we could eventually
negotiate the peaceful transfer of Hong Kong. If such a
movement develops we should even consider making it known
before the event that we would be prepared to deal with it
over Hong Kong.
9. It may be objected that if we showed our hand in this way
we would do a disservice to the liberal movement which would
then be branded in Chinese opinion generally as a puppet of
the foreigners. This is admittedly a danger but not necessarily
a serious one. Sun Yat-sen made his revolution with avowed
and open foreign help, and this only a few years after the
Boxer rebellion, one of the worst anti-foreign manifestations
in China's history. My own hunch is that if an ideological
change does take place in China it will develop much more
quickly than it did in Sun Yat-sen's time.
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/10.
I am