saliently gloomy features of the problem as they
emerge from study are these:
(b)
(a) The Chinese Government have at their
disposal (even without the use of military
force) the means of making our position in
the Colony humiliating and intolerable.
In whatever circumstances we abdicate our
position, it will be impossible to
discharge all our responsibilities to the
Hong Kong Chinese, or to remove or protect
all British and Hong Kong owned assets;
and we shall in effect be abandoning some
millions of unwilling inhabitants to
Communism (of whom about two million are
citizens of the U.K. and Colonies).
(c)
(a)
If we were to try to withdraw from Hong
Kong prematurely, it is by no means
certain that the Chinese would accept our
renunciation of authority. They might
attempt to force us to maintain a "puppet"
British administration under their control.
If it is assumed that the Colony will be
returning to China not later than 1997
(the termination of the lease of the "New
territories") there must, as this date
approaches, be a decline in confidence
in the Colony leading to the possibility
of prolonged economic recession. This
could be quite a significant factor in
the situation by the 1980s, if not before.
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13.
It