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Corr
SECRET
Brief four sons
E
218
4870/1147/10
Hong "on
The Colony of Hong Kong comprises three are18:-
(a) The island of Hong Kong, ceded outright to Great
Britain by the Banking Treaty of 1842.
(D) Part of the Kowloon Peninsula opposite Hong Kong, ceded outright by the Peking Convention of 1860.
(c) The New Territorios, leased for 9 years by the
Peking Convention of 1898. They include part of the mainland and a number of islands in the vicinity of a total area of 405 square miles.
2. The reason for the lease of the New Territories, as stated in the preamble to the Convention, was that an extension of Hong Kong territory was necessary for the proper defence and protection of the colony. What has now beceɛIG AT equally important factor is that the main water supply of Hong Kong is in the New Territories.
3. In the course of the negotiations which preceded time abolition of extraterritoriality in China, the Chinese Government made a request for the rendition of the How Territories. His Majesty's Goverment refused to consider question in connexion with extra-territoriality, but agrond tiné it might be discussed with the Chinese Government arter the UAE Almost certainly the Chinese Government will then face us with the proposal that the agreement of 1898 should be terminated and that the area should rovert to Chinese sovereignty.
44. At no time have the Chinese Governent raised the question of the status of Hong Kong as a whole,but it is gmeralls recognised that their ultimate object is the "recovery" of the whole colony coded to Great Britain in 1842 and 1860.
The Generalissimo, in his book "China's Destiny", published in 1943, made it clear that Hong Kong is regarded as properly belonging to China and its recovery is cørely being postponed.
5. In support of their claim, the chinese cun point the fact that Hong Kong is geographically and economically a part of China md that its population is overwhelmingly They would probably also claim that it was wrested from under the "unequal treaties" and that ite rendition would erase the last of China's humiliations suffered under those treaties.
6.
Against t is we can set the following ∞ nsiderations:
(a) At the time of its cession in 1842 Hong Kong was a
desolate island with no inhabitants except a few fishermen. British enterprise and good government have built it up to he one of the great seaports of the world, with a population of nearly a million inhabitants.
(b) With the ramoval of the protection afforded by extra- territoriality and a probablity of unsettled conditions
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