(237)
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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 uestion; since in our view the terms of the Sonvention
are appropriate to reserve for her the jurisdiction in Lowloon
City she claims.
(
If this view is right, the only ground upon which Great
Britain may validly refuse to allow the Chinese authorities
to resume their pre-Convention jurisdiction in howloon City
would be that military requirements for the defence of Hong
Kong preclude the exercise of such a jurisdiction by Chinese
officials. Be can well understand that the existence of a
focal point for the propagation of dissatisfaction with
British rule can be of the utmost inconvenience to the british
administration of the leased territory of Hong Long.
observe that it is the opinion of the Chiefs of staff that it
would now be inconsistent with military requirements to accede
to the Chinese request to be allowed to resume jurisdiction
in Kowloon City. The reasons given in the Minister of
5 of pfonce's letter, dated 5th May, 1948, are to the general "541457/16/148 (Pt.101) Forico's
effect that Kowloon City might provide a rallying point for
Chinese nationalism, from which active measures to return the
whole colony to China would be directed, and that, in general,
hostility could be fomented from howloon City against the
British administration. He would not, of course, prosune in
any way to question these views; but as a ratter of construc-
tion of the Convention we think there must be more than mere
inconvenience to the administration of a character which, in
the event of anticipated military operations, could be promptly
suppressed, before it could be said within the meaning of the
provision in question that chinese jurisdiction was inconsistent
with/