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9. The Colony's sea and air approaches are very vulnerable to Chinese harassment, since the ways of approaching the Colony without infringing Chinese airspace or her claimed territorial waters are very limited. could, however, send RAF aircraft to the Colony, although none is now based permanently there, We are also retaining minesweepers in Hong Ka rather than provide them by detachment from Singapore, Constant haras by the Chinese would deter air and shipping services from calling at Hong Kong and would thus do harm to trade and tourism. Aotion to inter with the movement or working of ships using Hong Kong would also damage the Colony's trade,
10, The general conclusion is that, with the very large majority of the local Chinese on our side, we can hold out in Hong Kong for as long as we can contain action of the sort described above and as long as we maintain the permanent military garrison at a level of 63 major units instead of reducing it by the equivalent of one major unit in accordance with the recent review of defence expenditure. The police are at present firmly in control, with British troops held in reserve, Nevertheless, there is always the risk of a rapidly escalating series of incidents, not necessarily ordered by Peking, producing a situation in which Peking took a positive decision to expel us. Moreover, the possibility exists that disturbances of this kind, even if they did not lead to loss of confidence in our ability to hold on, would lead to a falling off in the rate of investment necessary to maintain Hong Kong's economy and hence at best to a slow decline in her economic position. There is a danger that this process
would affect local confidence.
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11. Our main responsibility is to our nationals and friends in the Colony. Apart from the British troops and their families, we have a responsibility to protect all British subjects and Commonwealth citizens of non-Chinese race. We have a residual responsibility for foreign nationals (other than Chinese) if their own Governments are unable to make arrangements for them. We have a responsibility towards about half
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