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CONFIDENT IAL
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Mr Williamson, HK&GD, K242
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HONG KONG: COST OF DEFENCE COMMITMENT
AKK OHoll
RECEIVED IN REGISTRY NO. 51 3 1 MAR 1981
DECK OFFICER /INDEX
PA
REGISTRY Action Taken
1. In your minute of 9 January you asked me for a note of the east to HMG of its defence commitment to Hong Kong. I am sorry it has taken so long to
AWEL let you have a substantive reply. /
2.
As you say the immediate financial cost to HMG can be calculated from the Defence Costs Agreement (DCA). As far as we can establish, the overall cost of this for 1980/81 is about £68m. The effects of the increase in the garrison and of the new DCA (which comes into effect on 1 April 1981) will be to push this to about £177m in 1981/82. HMG will pay about £44m of that. The new arrangements for payment are advantageous to HMG.
3. We do not think it possible to quantify the other factors, such as those you raise in your minute, although we would make the following points:
i) Arising from the DCA, HMG will pay 25% of the cost of some reinforcements which may temporarily be deployed to Hong Kong;
ii) HMG is able temporarily to deploy elements of the garrison outside Hong Kong to meet contingencies elsewhere (i.e. Brunei, exercises conducted under the Five Power Defence Arrangements, ceremonial functions etc). This has obvious advantages for us;
iii) Hong Kong, where the majority of the Gurkha battalions are stationed, is in many ways the Gurkha's HQ. The new recruits do their initial training in Hong Kong. The importance of Hong Kong must therefore be seen in relation to the importance we attach to the Gurkhas;
iv) The value of Hong Kong in the Ministry of Defence's recruiting must be small given the relatively few British units deployed there;
v) As a result of the reduction of UK defence commitments in the
For Far East, Hong Kong can hardly now be considered a staging post. example, in normal circumstances Hong Kong would not even be a staging point on the Westabout Reinforcement Route.
I am sorry if this all seems very thin. The truth is that even allowing for the difficulty of quantifying the factors, few of them can even be said to lie & HMG's advantage.
10 February 1981
B Watkins Defence Department
2
This is not much help rally but I dont
Suppose we wo
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M. Williamson J 19.2--
Mu mar.
CODE 18-77
uced this out of nifirmation
If we might include it in 'Annex B' Jwinian
CONFIDENT KAI
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