W(B)L 51-7433
NOTHING TO BE WRITTEN IN THIS MARGIN
Registry No.
SECURITY CLASSIFICATION
XTON Serret.
DRAFT
To:-
xfecretXX
Confidential. XRestricted XX akinglassified. X
PRIVACY MARKING
The Lord Brown, MBE.,
Board of Trade
..In Confidence
Type 1 +
From
Telephone No. & Ext.
Department
I am writing further to my letter of
31 July about the Hong Kong Tunnel. I have
now seen a letter of the same date from
Cotterill (of ECGD) on the question of access
to Hong Kong assets in the event of a Chinese
take-over.
Legal powers exist to freeze sterling
assets in the hands both of the Hong Kong
Government and a private residents of the
Colony. We would thereafter be in a position
to control the release of these blocked assets.
We are looking into the precise legal position
regarding their disposal, but I feel bound to
point out that in our preliminary view :-
(a) An unfettered discretion on the part
(b)
of H.M.G. to direct their disposal is
likely to be largely confined to the
official assets of the Hong Kong
Government; private assets would be
in quite a different category.
There would be a variety of claims
on the official assets for which
H.M.G. might have to assume
responsibility if the Hong Kong
Government ceased to exist
including
for example, the claims of pensioners
and serving officers of the Colony's
Public Service, which must have a high
priority, and (possibly) claims of other Departments of H.M.G., such as the Defence Department.
/H.M.G.
...