1
SECRET
copied to Mr Burrows
160 2313
See Hir ayoll
(56)
FUTURE OF HONG KONG: LEGAL IMPLICATIONS
If the Government of the PRC are willing to enter into
an agreement with the UK authorizing the UK to administer the
New Territories after 30 June 1997 in the same way as before,
all that would be required in UK municipal law to give effect
to the agreement would be an amendment to the Order in Council
of 1898.
2. The Government of the PRC may however make it a condition
that the UK should make some sort of acknowledgment that Hong
Kong belongs to China, e.g. that it is under Chinese sovereignty
or is Chinese territory.
3. It might be possible for HMG to make some sort of political
declaration that would satisfy the Chinese while allowing the
status of Hong Kong in UK law as part of Her Majesty's
dominions to remain unchanged.
4. If, however, the Chinese were to insist that the territory
of Hong Kong at present under the sovereignty of the UK as a
matter of international law should be ceded back to China, it
would be necessary for this matter, and all important incidental
and consequential matters, to be dealt with in the agreement
and the UK would have to implement the agreement in its own
law by means of an Act of Parliament.
5. In particular the following matters would have to be
dealt with
dealt
A a)
J
responsibility for external affairs: the Chinese
would have to acknowledge that this remained
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/ exclusively