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FEASIBILITY STUDY ON EVACUATION OF HONG KONG
44 (0)
A Meeting of the Hong Kong Ministerial Committee on 24th July
(K(67) 1st Meeting) agreed that contingency plans should be prepared for
the physical evacuation from the Colony of British subjects and other
persons for whom we had a special responsibility. The first task of the
group to be set up for this purpose should be to give a broad indication
of the physical problems of evacuation. Stress was laid on the need for
the strictest secrecy about this planning, as any loak would dal public
confidence in Hong Kong a shattering blow. The Defence and Oversea Policy
Committee confirmed that contingency planning should proceed and emphasised
that knowledge of the exercise should be limited in Hong Kong to the
Govomor and the Commander, British Forces.
2. In a letter to the Commonwealth Secretary, the Minister of Defence
suggested that officials should prepare "as rapidly as possible, a general
appreciation of the potential scope and also the security risks of evacua-
tion planning relating to Hong Kong the appreciation should include a
summary of the existing and strictly limited evacuation arrangements for
specially selected personnel; the problems that would be presented by
any wido form of evacuation planning; and the way in which we might expect
to set about coping with any evacuation scheme if an emergency situation
demanded it". The Commonwealth Secretary agreed with those suggestions and
they have been taken as the basis for this roport.
3.
J
In considering the Report the following factors are rolovant
(a) The paper is confined to the immediate problem of ossential evacuation
from the Colony in the event of a sudden emergency. The Working Party will
consider in future papers the problems presented by a Chinese policy of
prolonged attrition directed against the Government of Hong Kong, and the
situation as the end of the lease of the New Territories in 1997 draws near.
(b) As regards the problem considered in the present paper, the Working
Party recognised that evacuation might have to take place as the result
of a situation either where the local authorities could not maintain control
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