47
formedky
will reverter and web of the Commlas Service in Ching and who
was a member of Committee,
were represented,
the 1946
which
you
on th
puters of the Whisesty.
specific question on which we are at the
moment anxious for your advice.
3. This question was raised in a letter
to our Secretary of State from Sir George Moss,
doubt knew. Sir George
whom you
suggested that should the Communist
Government in China continue along the paths
of xenophobia on which its feet seem set,
the suppression of Western-sponsored
universities in China might well produce a
situation in which Hong Kong University
was the only outport of Western culture, and
in particular of Anglo-Saxon culture and the
English language, within reach of China; and
that in that event it would be to the
advantage of those interests, whatever their
nationality or their religious affiliations,
who have supported the Western universities in
China, to divert their resources to the nearest
Western outpost on the periphery of Communist
domination. While Japan might have
attradtions for American interests, Hong Kong
is both nearer China and a Chinese centre.
Sir George therefore envisages a situation in
which all these interests, among whom the
Americans would of course be pre-eminent,
would join together, and join with ourselves,
in building up a university in Hong Kong which
would fully and worthily represent our joint Western culture,acting as a base from which to
maintain some sort of contact with China and
re-open direct cultural relations should
circumstances change again.
This is a grand and somewhat visionary
conception,