Hong Kong Department
CONFIDENTIAL
1. I have read the attached papers with interest, having myself served in Hong Kong as the Acting Political Adviser at the time at which the Snake Fence was built in the New Territories.
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At the time in question we were having difficulty at the frontier on two points. First of all we were unable to patrol close to the frontier because of the risk of incidents from individuals or mobs on the Chinese side who did not hesitate to come across into Hong Kong territory. A particular example of this was the situation at Mankamto, where live- stock for Hong Kong were normally driven across a bailey bridge into a paddock once they were collected for delivery to the slaughter houses in Hong Kong. The police post was literally at the end of the bridge and therefore quite useless as a mears of surveying the bridge or events in the paddock. For this purpose a new post was sighted on the hill overlooking the bridge about 100 yards back and a wire fence was erected within which the post on the hill could maintain any relatively small number of Chinese who "upted into Hong Kong territory.
On a larger scale there was a fear either that large numbers of Chinese would cross the frontiers at the instigation of the Chinese authorities merely to embarrass the Hong Kong authorities or that events in China would reach such a pass that large numbers of Chinese from Kwangtung province would simply burst through the frontier and try to take refuge in Hong Kong. It was clear to everyone in Hong Kong that in either of these events it would be necessary to contain the influx of people somewhere out of immediate range of Chinese forces on the frontier. It was therefore decided to erect the Snake Fence relatively far back from the frontier in such a position that an influx of Chinese could be held at it and their disposal thereafter attended to rather more at leisure and certainly not under @hivevase
Whe than Chinese guns where this meant returning them in dribs and drabs across the frontier or admitting/refugees to Hong Kong. The telegram (Hong Kong No. 1320 to the Commonwealth Office of 29 August 1967) makes it clear that these were the purposes for which the Snake Fence was built and I think that the description in paragraph 7 of Annex B to the paper drafted in December 1970 and transmitted under cover f Dick 2 over Colonel Pierce's letter of 11 January 1971 (Flag F) to Mr Laird
is only half true and should be ignored for our purposes. ije nawa?
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2. My view is therefore that the Snake Fence was indeed put into position to meet an external threat of two kinds, neither of which was strictly relevant to the internal situation obtaining in the urban areas of Hong Kong in which the Army was employed in aid the civil power. If therefore it is accepted practice that HMG are responsible for the cost of the external defences of Hong Kong then it seems to me fair that HMG should bear the cost of the provision of the stores for the Snake Fence and not the Hong Kong Government.
3.
There is also the question of which Department of HMG should pay the cost of the provision of external defences and as far as I can see from the files it seems that the Ministry of Defence have a cast iron case for saying that it is not their responsibility according to present
CONFIDENTIAL
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