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practice to treat the two types of territory
separately
in argument. The Chinese Communist administration has on occasion spoken of the three areas of Hong Kong, Kowloon and the New Territories, making it clear that it regards all three parts as Chinese territory. At other times the Chinese have spoken only of their claim to sovereignty over Hong Kong. This term, however, should almost certainly be taken as including Kowloon and the New Territories. In public, Britain has tended to speak only of Hong Kong and of its determination to maintain
its position there. Again, the term can generally be understood to include the other two constituent parts of the crown colony.
WARTIME EXPERIENCES
4.
a) Treaty to Relinquish Extraterritoriality, 1943
The nearest point reached to a Chinese challenge to the British claim to sovereignty over Hong Kong came during the Second World War. In the course of negotiations during 1942 over the treaty to relinquish British extra- territoriality in China, the Nationalist, Government proposed that two clauses should be added to the article dealing with the rendition of concessions, that would provide for the return of the territories leased under the 1898 Convention for the Extension of Hong Kong. The Nationalist Chinese Minister for Foreign Affairs, speaking on 13 November 1942 to HM Ambassador in Chungking, pointed out that the Chinese Government had not raised the question of Hong Kong, but felt that the 1898 Convention ought to be dealt with in the treaty under negotiation.
น
5. In response to the Chinese proposal, Britain let it be known that it regarded the New Territories lease as beyond the scope of the extraterritoriality treaty. The British argument ran that the leased territory was not properly a question of extraterritoriality but an extension
/under
(7765/828
17.11.42)
(F7742/828 15.11.42)
(F8092/€/828
3.12.42)
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