CONFIDENTIAL
CONFIDENTIAL
in the Far East and partly because of the difficulty of devising a
suitable electoral system for a Colony in which much of the popula-
tion at that time was not ordinarily resident and many residents were
not British subjects. In contrast to the general post-war desire for
representative and responsible Government in other Colonial terri-
tories, there is no general demand for constitutional change in Hong
Kong. The Chinese, who constitute 98% of the population, are not
really interested in constitutional reform: their desire is to live
and work under a well-established system of law and order and to pur-
sue their own private affairs with a minimum of interference by
Government. Informed opinion in the Colony is also aware of the
danger either that the introduction of elections would lead to open
political strife between Communist and KMT supporters, which would be
intolerable to Peking and might start reactions which would lead to
the end of the Colony's separate existence; or that public political
apathy Could lead to complete Communist control of the Colony's
institutions, which would make our position impossible.
The lease of the New Territories expires in 1997 and there is
no likelihood that it will be renewed. Without the leased area the
Colony would not remain viable. There is a school of thought (e.g.
in the Hong Kong Reform Club and the United Nations Association for
Hong Kong) which considers that the development of representative and
responsible Government in Hong Kong is possible. However, there have
been frequent and plain indications that the Chinese Peoples'
Government expect the "status quo" in Hong Kong to be maintained
and by this they mean that they would not accept any advancement
of the Colony along the normal progression towards self-Government
All the evidence suggests that any major
and independence.
2 -3-MAL
CO...
V
CONFIDENTIAL