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On Friday Lady Southorn brought a
Mr. V. Farmer, Chungking representative of I.C.I. to see me. Mr. Farmer had left Chungking as recently as February. He was in Hong Kong just before the fall of that colony and had been i in free China more or less ever since.
2.
I asked him if, in the course of general conversation with his Chinese friends, the subject of the future of Hong Kong had ever been mentioned, and if so, what the general opinion of unofficial Chinese seemed to be. He said that, in fact, the subject was very seldom mentioned and when it had come up it had never been pursued as it was quite obviously an embarrassing subject. His private opinion was that most Chinese with interests in Hong Kong would wish to see British authority restored there though they are afraid of saying so because the official policy of China is to look to the retrocession of Hong Kong to them.
3.
On the more general plane of commercial relations with the Chinese, he found that they were very anxious to have British co-operation in developing the country, not as a substitute for, but in addition to American co-operation. In fact, the general position was that it is not at present the Chinese, but we, who are now held back in making plans for post-war British. commercial development in China.
4.
He, personally, very much hopes that Hong Kong will not be returned to the Chinese after the war and he did not himself think that a firm attitude in this matter on our part would be likely to endanger general Anglo-Chinese relations, or to be damaging to British commercial interests in China.
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5.
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