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U.K. forces have been needed for internal security the practice
(as restated in the interdepartmental ruling quoted in para 10 of
the Annex) has been to require the territory to reimburse the
"extra" (or "extra budgetary") costs of .the units so employed;
is a new concept to talk in terms of a territory meeting the full
budgetary cost. In addition a few territories have contributed
towards "Commonwealth defence generally"; Hong Kong is one of these.
26.
B
it
In Hong Kong the development of the local forces police
and military has largely reached the limits for the role such
forces can serve. (The Police Force consists of 10,000 all ranks,
who are overwhelmingly Chinese in composition. There is also a
volunteer Police Reserve. The Volunteer Defence Force consists of
some 900 men, of whom two thirds are Chinese. There is also an
auxiliary Air Force unit equipped with Helicopters). Given the
nature of the threat (China), local forces cannot be entrusted
with entire responsibility because they are preponderantly Chinese
in composition and in an emergency engineered by China we could
not entirely rely on them. We need British forces in Hong Kong to
stiffen the local forces in such situations.
27. It is this link between the external and internal threat that
vitiates MOD attempts to attribute a purely internal security role
to elements in our forces and to assess on this basis what contri-
bution Hong Kong should pay (paras 9-13 of Speqking Notes). Defence
and internal security are inextricably linked in Hong Kong and this
has been the case throughout the Colony's history. Since 1863 the
Colony has met its obligation to contribute to the military forces maintained there (and elsewhere) by H.M.G. through an annual
contribution to defence which has varied from an agreed percentage
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/of