C
CONFIDENTIAL
2
DSR 11C
approved a preliminary list of territories, including
Hong Kong, to which the Declaration applied.
This was
done in 1963 when the Committee of 24 took over the
function of the Committee of Information from
Three
Non-Self-Governing Territories. representatives
(Bulgaria, Cambodia and the USSR) in the Working Group
of the Committee of 24 reserved the positions of their
Governments with regard to the inclusion of Hong Kong
in this list because they regarded this territory as
an integral part of the People's Republic of China
forcibly occupied by the UK.
On 8 March 1972 the Permanent Representative of the
People's Republic of China, in a letter to the Chairman
of the Committee of 24, asked for the removal of Hong
Kong from the list of territories' to which the
Declaration applied. A copy of the Chinese Representative's
letter is attached. He stated in the letter that Hong
Kong was part of Chinese territory occupied by the United
Kingdom and that the settlement of the question of
Hong Kong fell entirely within China's sovereign right.
ation
The letter was referred to the Working Group of the
Committee of 24. In May The Working Group's recommended
that the General Assembly should adopt the decision
removing Hong Kong from the list of non self-governing
This recommendation was approved by the
countries
CONFIDENTIAL
/Committee