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COLONIAL
OFFICE
DRAFT REPORT: HONG KONG
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BACKGROUND
The Colony of Hong Kong consists of four areas:-
(1) Hong Kong Island.(29 square miles) ceded by China
to Great Britain in perpetuity under the Treaty of Nanking, 1842.
(ii) A strip of land on the Kowloon Peninsula, with a few small islands (about four square miles) ceded by the
Peking Convention 1860.
(iii) The New Territories (365 square miles) leased to Great
Britain for 99 years under the Peking Convention 1898 (this includes the remainder of the islands).
(iv) Included in (iii) above, the so-called "Wall City
of Kowloon" (6 acres,) an area in which, under the 1898
Convention, the Chinese retained certain jurisdictional
rights which we extinguished in 1899. Our legal
position is by no means clear cut. The Chinese have
repeatedly revived their claim to jurisdiction, the last occasion being in 1963.
Population. The population of the Colony is about 3.8 million, of whom 98% are Chinese and predominantly Cantonese. About half of the
Chinese population have, or are entitled to, the status of Citizens of the United Kingdom and Colonies. Non-Chinese (including British Servicemen and families) number about 75,000.
3. The Economy. Hong Kong has no natural resources. Prior to 1950 its prosperity rested on the entrepot trade, principally with China.
With the advent of the Communist Government in China and the embargo on strategic exports to China at the time of the Korean war, the entrepot trade dwindled rapidly. In its place, industry (based very largely on the skills and capital of overseas Chinese) assumed a dominant role,
4. Hong Kong is now firmly established as a light industry economy based on exports. It has retained and developed a considerable entrepot
trade serving South East Asia and the Far East. It is the fifth largest port (basically a free port) in the world. The value of the Colony's trade in 1966 was £1,104 million, placing Hong Kong third amongst the trading
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