F 9158/376/G
SECRET.
te
I culto
FOREIGN OFFICE, S.W.1.
17th July, 1947.
119
Thank you for your letter No. S/O 513 (8276/1077/47) of the 24th June recording a discussion with your Portuguese colleague on the subject of Macao and Hong Kong.
We entirely agree with your view that there would be advantage in both Governments at present refraining from forcing the issue by public statements of their deter- mination to retain the territories in question. For your own confidential information, the Secretary of State recently persuaded Mr. Creech-Jones to agree to defer for the present the "reassuring statement" which the Colonial Office have been wanting to make about Hong Kong, which we felt would seem gratuitously provocative to the Chinese at a time when they are in no position to do anything about it. The necessity for any prior consultation with the Portuguese does not therefore arise in our case.
We have not exchanged any views with the Portuguese Government about Hong Kong and Macao. If the Portuguese approached us for this purpose we should wish to discourage any consultation about policy. The feeling here is that the Portuguese would be only too willing to try and establish a "united front" with us on China questions, but that it would be embarrassing for us if they were to do so, partly because their record in Macao (gambling, opium, etc.) compares unfavourably with Hong Kong's, and partly because Macao's treaty position is more vulnerable than Hong Kong's the former having never been formally ceded by China as Hong Kong was to us. While, therefore, - since Hong Kong is a much sounder proposition than Macao - it would be to the interest of the Portuguese to tie Macao's fate with that of Hong Kong, it is to our interest to avoid any such process.
His Excellency
Sir Ralph Stevenson, K. C.M.G.
This /