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O.P.D.
INTERIM REPORT: HONG KONG
(Paper No.OPD(67)61)
Summarning 1.2. by The interion report.
The Secretary of State may wish to introduce this paper in the Same
way as he introduced it in the Hong Kong Ministerial Committee on the 24th July? A summary of the interim report is attached; it is the
one used by the Secretary of State at the previous meeting.
2.
There are certain points arising from the Minutes of the Ministerial
Committee Meeting on the 24th of July which may be touched upon in O.P.D.
These are dealt with below.
Consultations with the Australians
3. The report mentions (paragraph 17) that the Americans could be of
great assistance in an evacuation but concludes that, because of the risk
of a leak, we need not now seek to plan jointly with them. The Ministerial
Committee concluded that we should not at present consult the United States
Administration about our plans.
has been
And
not
4. No mention is made here of the pressure that the Australians have
been exerting at official level for joint contingency planning for an
evacuation. The Australians have considerable interests in Hong Kong
and the Australian community numbers about 2,500. They have expressed
ठ anxiety for the safety of these and, in particularly, about their contingent
attached to the intelligence community. At one stage they refused to
believe that we were. telling them the truth when we said that we had no evacuation plans nor were we proposing to prepare any. We have now made
it clear at high official level that this is the position and have been
told by the officials concerned that they fully understand our difficulties.
Nevertheless, the pressure continues at a lower level and we think it may
be necessary to say something to the Australians through our High Commissioner
in Canberra to ensure that this pressure is not/sustained. This is a
matter which we hope to discuss with the High Commissioner before he
returns to Australia next week.
Nuclear Strike Force
68.
more
It is understood that the Defence Secretary will raise the question
of possible ways of deterring the Chinese from a military attack on the
Colony;
in the Ministerial Committee the possibility of stationing in
Hong Kong a small nuclear strike force similar to that stationed in Singapore
at the time of the Indonesian confrontation was mentioned.
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