CO537-2187 — Page 208

request for the opening of negotiations, make it

desirable to examine the line that we should take in

the event of negotiations with the Chinese.

6.

We are virtually committed to discuss the

leased area, and the Chinese Government may take

the opportunity to put forward a claim to the return

of the ceded area of Hong Kong. Such a claim, if

made, might receive some support from other countries,

the United States, for example, though, for the

reasons given later on in this paper, the

retrocession of Hong Kong to China is not likely to

be welcomed in business circles in America or

elsewhere. It is, however, difficult to see on

ал

which grounds a claim for the retrocession of

Hong Kong could be made. The principle which led

to the agreement to abolish extraterritorial

privileges in China in 1943 could scarcely be

invoked, and any attempt to use the preponderating

Chinese population as an argument could be met by

pointing out that Hong Kong was a barren rock when

it was ceded; that the Chinese population had come

to Hong Kong and settled there under British

administration of their own free will; and that the

fact that a large Chinese population remains there

was in itself proof of the acceptability of the

British administration and the contentment of the

people. On the other hand, there is the strong

argument against such a claim that its acceptance would, in effect, involve the acceptance of the

general principle that territory ceded by one

power to another in the past should now be returned,

a principle that would certainly have wide

repercussions throughout the world.

7.

In our own case, for example, it would

give support to the claims which have been made by

foreign