CONFIDENTIAL
THIS DOCUMENT IS THE PROPERTY OF HER BRITANNIC MAJESTY'S GOVERNMENT
PMV (HK)(74)15
14 December 1973
PRIME MINISTER'S VISIT TO HONG KONG
12th-14th JANUARY, 1974
KOWLOON WALLED CITY
Brief by Foreign and Commonwealth Office
COPY NO 56
1. The Walled City is now neither walled nor a city; it is a
61 acre area of densely-packed tenement slums near Kaitak Airport
in Kowloon, with an estimated population of some 40,000. The
Chinese claim that the Walled City falls outside Hong Kong
jurisdiction. The basis of this claim is a provision in the
second Convention of Peking of 1898 (under which the New Territories
were leased) which reads: "Within the city of Kowloon the Chinese
officials now stationed there shall continue to exercise
jurisdiction except so far as may be inconsistent with the military
requirements for the defence of Hong Kong".
2. HMG unilaterally abrogated this provision by Order in Council
in 1899 on the grounds that military requirements demanded it.
From time to time there has been trouble over this. The Government
of the People's Republic ignored the issue from 1949. They then
issued a statement protesting strongly about a clearance and
resettlement scheme involving part of the Walled City. There were
incidents in 1970 and 1971 when the local communists tried to
assert their authority on the basis of the Chinese Government's
statement of 1963.
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