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CONFIDENTIAL
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DSR 11C
therefore, sent from the Permanent Representative of the United Kingdom .to, the United Nations Secretary-General putting on record that the United Kingdom had decided to discontinue transmitting information on Hong Kong because no useful purpose would be served by continuing such trans- mission and not because the United Kingdom regarded the General Assembly's action as altering the status of Hong Kong
or terminating the operation of ARticle 73(e). A copy of the
letter of 19 December 1972 is enclosed.
We consider that the decision taken was the right one.
An annual slanging match at the United Nations General
Assembly with China (when Peking might have felt obliged
to posture for the Third World decolonisation lobby and
we should have been strongly outnumbered) would have done
much to undermine confidence in the Territory. In the
circumstances we avoided this without prejudicing our legal
position.
CONFIDENTIAL