-4-
it might have been possible to construe the words in the
provision as retaining for China some limited form of jurisdiction.
They cannot, we think, be so construed in the case of a very small
city with a very small population such as Kowlon City, which,
at the time of the Convention, was wholly under Chinese administration.
We accordingly are of opinion that the Convention provided
that complete Chinese jurisdiction within Kowloon City should remain
vested in the Chinese authorities, subject, of course, to military
requirements.
In May, 1899, the Chinese officials were driven out and the
City of Kowloon was incorporated in the leased territory
virtually for all purposes, Chinese control thereafter disappearing.
We do not think that it could be validly contended on behalf of
Great Britain that, by virtue of the doctrine of abandonment or
any similar doctrine, the Chinese Government had lost any rights of
jurisdiction which they possessed through not being able to reassert
jurisdiction in Kowloon City since 1899.
Although for a prolonged
period after 1900 until 1933 the Chinese Government did not press
any claim to exercise jurisdiction in Kowloon City, we do not think
it could be said that China acquiesced for a sufficient period
to lose any rights she possessed. The expulsion of Chinese
officials was never in any sense formally accepted by the Chinese
as justifiable or as marking any permanent change in the status of
the City, and we feel that mere inaction on the part of China during the period of 1933 cannot be interpreted as such an abandonment of her claim to.jurisdiction as would prevent her reasserting it now.
It follows that we do not think it is necessary for China to assert
any overriding claim to sovereignty based upon her title as lessor of
the territory in question; since in our view the terms of the
Convention are appropriate to reserve for her the jurisdiction in
Kowloon City she claims.
If this view is right, the only grand upon which Great Britain
may validly refuse to allow the Chinese authorities to resume
their pre-Convention jurisdiction in Kowloon City would be that
/military
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