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"China will not use the occasion of Japan's unconditional surrender as a pretext for disregarding international agree- ments and infringing upon the rights of our allies. We will not. take advantage of this opportunity to despatch troops to take over Hong Kong, nor will we provoke misunderstanding among our allies. I wish to state here that the present status of Hong Kong is regulated by a treaty signed by China and Great Britain. Changes in future will be introduced only through friendly negotiations between the two countries. Our foreign policy is to honour treaties, rely upon law and seek rational readjustments when the requirements of time and actual conditions demand such readjustments. Now that all the leased territories and settlements in China have been one after another returned to China, the leased territory of Kowloon should not remain an exception. But China will settle this last issue through diplomatic talks between the two countries."
5. It is evident from this that the question of terminating the agreement of 1898 for the lease of the "New Territories" referred to in paragraph 1(c) above will be raised in the near future by the Chinese Government.
6. At no time have the Chinese Government raised the question of the status of Hong Kong as a whole, but it is generally recognised that their ultimate object is the "recovery" of the whole colony ceded 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 merely being postponed.
7. In support of their claim, the Chinese can point to the fact that Hong Kong is geographically and economically a part of China and that its population is overwhelmingly Chinese. They would probably also claim that it was wrested from them under the "unequal treaties" and that its return would erase the last of China's humiliations suffered under these treaties.
Against this we can set the following considerations:- (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 be one of the great seaports of the world, with a population of nearly a million inhabitants.
8.
(b) With the removal of the protection afforded by extra-
territoriality and a probability of unsettled con- ditions in China for some years after the war, Hong Kong is likely to aquire increasing importance and value as a base from which British merchants and industrialists can operate in China.
(c) Both the Chinese in Hong Kong itself, (many of whon." are British subjects), and also any Chinese traders on the mainland who avail themselves of the facilities of Hong Kong, would probably be very un- willing to see the end of British rule there, although they would hardly venture to say so in public.
(a) China has recently agreed to the use of Port Arthur
as a naval base by the U.S.S.R. She is therefore not in a position to claim that the existence of special British rights in Hong Kong is without parallel in the Far East.
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