CONFIDENTIAL
dependent territories.
I doubt if we would have too much
difficulty with these. What is clear, however, is thật
we cannot have one nomenclature for Hong Kong and
one for the other territo des.
4.
As you will recall from George Walden's letter of
23 July tp Butler, the Governor of Hong Kong explained his
concerns to Mr Raison,and Lord Carrington was made aware
of the strength of feeling on this issue when he visited
Hong Kong. Essentially the Governor still holds to the view
that any change in the present title of CUKC would create
political problems and cause severe damage to confidence
in the Crown Colony. His basic argument is that the Hong
Kong Chinese will simply not accept that nothing is
intended beyond a change of nomenclature, and will assume
that our ulterior motive is to prepare the way for a weakening
in our attitude towards the Colony. A parallel warning
has also been given by our Ambassador in Peking. He has
said that the Chinese general interest will be that we
make no such changes as would:-
a) upset the present stability and prosperity
in Hong Kong, or
b) impinge on the long-term future of Hong Kong.
M.
The
In short both Sir MacLehose and r Craddock urge strongly
that the nomenclature of CUKC should be retained.
Governor has said flatly that the title "British citizen
of Hong Kong" would be disastrous.
The Ambassador has
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warned that any change in nomenclature, particularly if it
produced "British citizen of Hong Kong", would arouse
Chinese suspicions which could be very damaging for
our policy on Hong Kong and our relationship with
China. I attach a memorandum setting out the whole problem of Hong Kong in preater detail. In : um
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