Fair
pour!
freety
9
their obligations
its
A
including the date of surrender of the leased territory.
The recent affimation of this doctrine appeared in the slightly absurd
and tight-lipped letter of the UI Permanent Representative at the UN, C.T.
in
Crowe,dated 14 Dec 1972/reply to the decision of the ecolonisation Committee
to remove liong Kong and Macao from their jurisdiction at the request of
China, Thús appears to have been one of China's first actions after regaining
a
China
their seat in the UN and the rsons that advanced have been somewhat misrepre-
sented in the past. They did not claim that Hong Kong and Macao were not
colonies, but rather that the Committee charged with various duties under Article
80
73 of the UN Charter had its main aim the implementation of the declaration
(my emphasis) ripe Crowe
on the granting of independence to colonial countries and peoples and as such
China objected on the grounds that no independent liong Kong or Macao was possible
and that any change would be handled by China when the time was
conveyed the intention of UK not to send the annual reports previously
required under Art.73e and added the following disclaimer:
My Government have also asked me to state that the action of the General
Assembly in no way affects the legal status of Hong Kong. The views
(2)
of my Government about this status are well known.
The same stance was reaffirmed in Parliament on 15 Nov 76 by Evan luard in
reply to a question over sovereignty for long long posed by Frank Hooley MP
and again referred to HQ's "well-known view of the status of Hong Long".
its
W
"
It is fair to point out that is despite being so well known, I for one have
have been totally unable to discover exactly what this view 18)in any publicly
available document; however, one can only presume from the context that it is
perpetual one of unconditional British sovereignty for Hong Kong and Kowloon and a leased
sovereignty for the New Territories that expires at mignight June 30th 1997.
"