CO537-2187 — Page 34

Nos.117 to 120 are interesting.

There has for some time been agitation in the Chinese Press for the return of Macao to China, apparently sponsored to some extent by the Canton authorities (see No.110). Whether or not this was the actual reason behind it, the Portuguese Minister for the Colonies some time in June made a rather warm-blooded statement, the general tenor of which was, I gather, that Portugal intends to maintain the integrity of her Colonial Empire, if necessary "until blood flows". We have not yet received the actual text of the statement, and the phrase I have quoted is only hearsay from the Foreign Office, but it appears to be borne out by No.117.

No.118 describes a slightly comic situation i in which Dr. Wang, the Chinese Foreign Minister appears to have been misquoted in a Chinese newspaper on a report which he made to a Committee of the Chinese People's Political Council, of a conversation he had with the Portuguese Ambassador. Dr. Wang issued a dementi, but Sir Ralph Stevenson is not sure that in fact the newspaper report was so very inaccurate. Dr. Wang recently made a public statement of his belief that Britain might eventually relinquish control of Hong Kong and Kowloon (see No.112).

The Chinese Government evidently took the statement of the Portuguese Minister for the Colonies as having particular reference to Macao. Its principal interest from the point of view of the Foreign Office is that they have taken this opportunity of reaffirming their view that it would not be politic in present circumstances to issue a re-assuring public statement about Hong Kong. In No.117 Sir R. Stevenson himself expresses the opinion that it would be better, so far as can be foreseen at the moment, not to force the issue in this way; and in No.119 Mr. Kitson reads into this expression of opinion, by a process which is not entirely clear to me, agreement on the part of the Ambassador with the Foreign Office view that we should not, for the time being, seek a Cabinet decision on future policy in regard to Hong Kong, as distinct from the 2030m. issue of whether or not a reassuring public statement should be made.

The thing however that occurs to me,

I confess, is that, so far at least, there does not appear to be any evidence that the Portuguese statement has, in fact, provoked an official demand by the Chinese Government (as opposed to the intermittent Kuomintang agitation) for the retrocession of Macao, nor, so far, does it appear to have led to any other of the awkward consequences which the Foreign Office have always thought would be risked in a public statement of this nature. If, at the same time, the Portuguese statement has had any sort of steadying effect in Macao, they may well have achieved their object. It is perhaps too early to judge, but I suggest that the situation is worth watching closely in case circumstances oblige us to revive the question of a reassuring statement about Hong Kong.

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