HONGKONG
597
they had been given by Chinese courts. The Chinese agreed in Articles XVI and XVII to maintain Weihaiwei "as an area for international residence and trade," and to "ascertain the views of the foreign residents" in such municipal matters as might directly affect their welfare and interests. And finally in Article VIII the Chinese agreed to lease to the British government free of charge for thirty years, with option of renewal, certain land and buildings to be used as the British consulate and in the public interest of the resident.
In a further agreement between Wang and Lampson some of these commitments by the Chinese government were spelt out in even more detail, for example that it would "as far as possible maintain efficiently the existing system of municipal services on Liukungtao" (a part of Weihaiwei) “(i.e. roads, walls, police, sanitation and lighting), conserve the existing forests, permit no brothels, permit the sale of no liquors or intoxicants except in licensed premises, and maintain the present regulations as regards cultivation."
In these agreements there is a formal surrender of title and sovereignty from Britain to China. But there follows a series of restrictions on the unfettered freedom of the Chinese side to ex- ercise that sovereignty as it may wish, and there is evidence in the texts of a desire on both sides that a great deal of the de facto situation in these concessions be maintained, presumably as being in the interests for the time being both of China and of the UK. It is in that sense that they are interesting, though not necessarily persuasive and certainly not binding, in the case of any
future discussion over the rendition of Hongkong.
Of course these arrangements in 1927 and 1930 were made at a time when the Chinese government was still very weak, and in no real position to resist international pressure. Any such arrange- ments come to in the 1980s about the rendition of the New Terri- tories of Hongkong, or of Hongkong as a whole, would take place in a very different climate, one in which the Chinese would not feel obliged to give anything away that they did not desire. Never- theless the Weihaiwei Agreement of 1930 underlines the capacity of a Chinese government to concede de facto if it can be seen as winning de jure.
VI
But there is a school among the British which says that it would