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United Kingdom could, as your paper recognises, affect her attitude towards
Hong Kong.
Future action
6. Without going through all the specific recommendations in Section J of K(69) 1, you may wish to seek the Committee's endorsement of the three specific studies, additional tothe review discussed in paragraph 7 of K(70) 1, proposed
in the earlier paper. They are:
(a) To study the effect on life in Hong Kong of the approach of 1997, the
date of expiry of the Lease on the New Territories, which, it is envisaged, will increasingly stunt economic and social life in the Colony (paragraph 49).
(b) To estimate the bearing the approach to 1997 should have on the social
policies we pursue in Hong Kong in the meantime, bearing in mind, on the one hand, that further widening of the gap between Hong Kong and China would make transition to Chinese rule more difficult, and, on the other hand, that it would be both wrong and inexpedient deliberately to restrain a rise in the living standards (paragraph 50).
(c) To consider how to secure the support and understanding of the United
States of the policies proposed, and to calculate the advantages and disadvantages of doing this (paragraph 53).
With reference to (c), an approach to the United States at the present moment would clearly be inopportune but officials can no doubt begin an assessment of the questions involved with a view to making recommendations at a later date.
7. K(70) 1, paragraph 7, envisages a further report to the Committee in the first half of 1971 and this might be the target date for reports on all four
studies.
Cabinet Office, S.W.1.
6 May 1970
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Notucion
(P.J. HUDSON)