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56. It is most unlikely (with the precedent of Shanghai before us) that China would stand by while we stripped Hong Kong of such people and assets as we wished to remove. We can expect to be restricted
both as to the time allowed and in our freedom of action.
Given
the attitude of successive Chinese Governments to our tenure of
the Colony and to foreign Governments in general, they are likely
to want to make our loss and discomfiture as great as possible. Nor is it within our power, by military force, to hold them off
while we make the necessary arrangements. This likely Chinese attitude and the nature of the problems we shall face (particularly the internal security problem) point to the need to reach some understanding or arrangement with China.
The Possibilities
57. Against this background of a need to find a solution in co-operation with China, we consider the possibilities of divesting ourselves of Hong Kong.
58. If a separate status could be found for Hong Kong, independent of Britain or China and Ander United Nations auspices or otherwise,
we would have done what we could to protect the non-Communist population of Hong Kong from forcible "liberation". At the same
time the difficulties over constitutional advance would be removed.
But there is no real prospect of any solution which does not provide
for the resumption of Chinese sovereignty over Hong Kong. The present Chinese Government is almost certain to duny that the United Nations has any standing in the question: it has on a
number of occasions in a United Nations context made it clear,
through Communist Member States of the United Nations, that the future of Hong Kong is not a matter for the United Nations but rests between China and Britain. Any change in this attitude is
inconceivable in the foreseeable future. And we do not have any
means of bringing effective pressure to bear on China to accept any solution on these lines. An economic embargo on trade with China e.g. of the kind operated during the Korean War might, while China remains at loggerheads with Russia and other countries of the Soviet bloc, be extremely effective. But it does not seem at
all likely that, for the sake of Hong Kong, we could secure the
agreement of the free world to mount such an embargo. France for
one would probably refuse to fall in line. There would be other countries who would bereluctant to join in on the grounds that they do not mix trade with politics, There could in any case be no certainty that economic isolation would drive China to its knees.
If the embargo was really effective, Hong Kong would cease to have
any economic value to China. The risk would be that a China driven
in on itself in this way would be a more dangerous and determined neighbour and would not hesitate to take over Hong Kong.
/The possibilities
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