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The feeling that Tong Yong is a nuisance to Britain
Resentment ut what is regar- ded as inter- ference by Britain in local affairs
United Kingdom-Hong Kong relations during the past decade.
6. There has been a growing feeling in Hong Kong that
Britain, so far from being proud of Hong Kong's achievements,
regards the Colony as a nuisance and an impediment. In the
post-war years we left Hong Kong to grapple alone (without
significant financial assistance) with the tremendous problems
posed by the influx of refugees from China. At the same time
we are seen in Hong Kong as having dealt the Colony a series
of blows to its trade and finances: the restrictions on
its exports of cotton textiles to this country since 1959,
the import surcharge (1964), the increase in the defence
contribution (1966), devaluation (1967), the import deposit
scheme (1968), and the decision to impose a tariff on cotton
textile imports from the Commonwealth (1969). Our actions
are seen as showing a lack of concern for Hong Kong's interests
and for her special problems; as indicating an indifference
to the special ties and relationship which should subsist
between a Colony and the responsible power.
7. At the same time, the Colony's remarkable record
economic expansion and material progress in the last decade,
achieved with the minimum of outside aid, has induced a feeling
of confidence among those who play a prominent part in public
affairs that, but for the complication of China, Hong Kong
would be capable of standing on its own feet and, more than
any territory which has been granted constitutional advance,
of sustaining self-governing status. The unofficial members
of Legislative Council, supported by public opinion as
expressed in the non-communist press, are therefore inclined
to argue that Britain should not interfere in local affairs.
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