SECRET
132
香港總督官邸
Des Ritin
LAST PAPER
NEW TERRITORIES LEASES
1.
RA
THE OFFICE OF THE GOVERNOR
FLAGSTAFF HOUSE
HONG KONG
Lemember 1978
HKUS Ovoll
KAGAIVED IN REGISTRY NO. 51
2 9 DEC 1978
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DARK 0:0 INDEX
PA
A
PEC. RY Action Ten
When Percy Cradock was here at the beginning of the month we put in some intensive work with him on how the problem of the New Territories Lease should be handled. It was very useful to be able to do this with him, and the drafts enclosed with this letter were worked out then and have been refined with him in correspondence since. They therefore are intended to represent our joint position. But this letter has not been cleared with him and I hope he will intervene if he disagrees on any point in it, or, on reconsideration, in the enclosures.
see 26 of
HKKONDI the approach we make, tactics, and timing. But in the 1980ble first place it might be helpful if I recapitulated.
2. I will divide this letter into the substance of
3.
Our object is to do something, with the prior agreement of the Chinese (tacit or explicit), that will remove the significance of the terminal date of the New Territories Lease, before it starts to erode confidence and prosperity in the early 80s. There is a reasonable prospect of the Chinese perceiving a mutual interest in this, since whatever their views may be about the disposa 1 of Hong Kong towards the end of the century, their plans for the next decade at any rate and probably the next two decades, will assume that the foreign exchange and other benefits conferred on them by the present status of Hong Kong will continue. It would therefore be an embarrassment to them if it started to run down in the early 80s.
4.
Unfortunately the problem cannot be solved indefinitely by the sort of reassuring noises that have steadily issued from Peking. This is because we are running up against the terminal date of the many thousands of leases issued in the New Territories, and this cannot be changed without legislation to which we would have to be satisfied the Chinese would not object. Since there is no evading this particular and very practical question, we are agreed that action over it offers the best basis for an approach to the Chinese about the future of the New Territories.
RJT McLaren Esq
HKGD FCO
SECRET
/ Substance
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