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overall measures so far-ranging as to seriously disturb our major Allies. You
will therefore understand with how rigorous an eye we had to view our military
commitments outside the NATO Alliance.
7.
While our main defence interests are not served by a military presence East of
Suez, there was little scope for reductions, other than those we are making in
Mauritius, Gan and Singapore. Among our dependant territories we recognised that
we must continue to maintain forces in Hong Kong and this is now by far the
largest British commitment outside NATO even though this had to be at the
expense of what we could allocate to NATO.
8. Having described the background I now turn to an explanation of HMG's approach
to the future military presence in Hong Kong. I wish to assure you that the
basis of our thinking is HMG's long-standing political commitment to the integrity
of the colony and the security and well being of its inhabitants. There is no
lessening of this commitment and HMG is conscious that a garrison adequate
in military terms is an important manifestation of it. But, as I have already
said, we are facing a serious economic crisis and it can no longer be light that
the UK should continue to bear so much of the burden of providing for your security.
We are therefore proposing two steps. The first is to limit the size of the
garrison to no more than is absolutely necessary. We have therefore undertaken
careful and prolonged study of the minimum garrison that would be adequate. The
garrison, at the time we came into office comprised 5 infantry battalions, an
artillery regiment, an armoured reconnaissance squadron, engineers, a frigate and
patrol craft, and a helicopter squadron. At September 74 prices it cost about
£50M, $600,000,000 HK dollars. Careful study showed that some reduction from this
level of forces would be militarily justifiable, and as a first step a number
of withdrawals were agreed and announced in March. The important elements were
the removal of the artillery regiment, less a battery, the armoured reconnaissance
squadron, and a reduction in the Naval presence. The remaining garrison cost
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