CONFIDENTIAL
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Miss Lovering (Sensitivity Review Unit, Library & Records, CW 328)
HONG KONG
1. You asked for views on the advisability of three 1947 files being released to the public. I consider that they should not be released. If it were publicly known that HMG was once prepared to the return of the New Territories to China in advance of the expiry of the lease agreed in 1898 at the Convention of ieking, this might well cause considerable uncertainty in Hong Kong, especially now that 1997 is thirty years nearer and Hong Kong's economy and society are very much more dependent than they were in 1947 on this part of the Colony.
Because it is now more populous and its economy is now more broadly based, Hong Kong has become indivisible and it is very much more sensitive to suggestions that it might, in fact, be divided.
T J David
29 April 1977
Hong Kong & General Department K 247
233 4777
CONFIDENTIAL